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The Happy Wife or Daughter 
Has Music in Her Home 

The real spirit of music and Happiness is obtained only by 
having the best pianos. Let this list be your guide in buying. 
STEINWAY— IVERS & POND— LUDWIG 
or the DYER BROS. PLAYER PIANO. 

There is nothing any higher in grade at their prices and we 
sell anywhere on reasonable payments. Call or write for free 
catalogues. 

No matter what you want in music, think of 

Metropolitan Music Company 

The Complete Music Store 

37 to 43 South Sixth Street Minneapolis, Minn. 

SHEET MUSIC— ALL KINDS— EVERYTHING 

Largest Department in the City. 
VICTROLAS— RECORDS— PLAYER ROLLS 
All the different Victrola styles priced from $25 to $1,200. 
American and Foreign records. Thousands of Player Rolls to select 
from. 

PIANOS TUNED AND REPAIRED 

VICTROLAS OILED AND REPAIRED 




DAUGHTERS OF TROPICAL FRANCE 




jp'" 






A MORRILL CENSOR 



Lib of ConQR£SS 



SEA SODOMS 

A 5/MCAL SURVEY 7^ 

of 

HAITI, SANTO DOMINGO, PORTO RICO, 

CURACAO, VENEZUELA, GUADELOUPE, 

MARTINIQUE, CUBA 



By 

G7L/ MORRILL 

("GOLIGHTLY") 

Pastor of People*s Church, 

Minneapolis, Minn., U. S. A. 




LOWELL L. MORRILL 
Photographer 

PIONEER PRINTERS, MINNEAPOLIS. MINN. 



©ci.Afci+qit 



F/6/1 



Copyright 1921 
G. L. Morrill 



«jQ=0 



J 



©CLA614918 



r 



TO j 

THE MEMORY I 

OF 

CAIN AND LOT, 

APOSTLES 

OF 

PROGRESS AND CIVILIZATION, 

THIS BOOK 

IS 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



BOOKS BY G. L. MORRILL 

Curse of the Caribbean and the Three Guianas 
(Gehennas) 

Hawaiian Heathen an9 Others ^ 

Rotten Republics — Central America 

To Hell and Back — South America 

Golightly ^Round the Globe 

Tracks of a Tenderfoot 

South Sea Silhouettes 

The Devil in Mexico 

Parson's Pilgrimage 

A Musical Minister 

Fireside Fancies 

People's Pulpit 

Here and There 

On the Warpath 

Easter Echoes 

The Moralist 

Uppercuts 

Driftwood 

Musings 



AUTHOR'S APOLOGY 

It seems to be a tvise provision of nature that the follies 
f men should be short-lived; but books interfere and im- 
lortalize them. A fool, not content with having bored all 
hose who have lived with him, insists on tormenting genera- 
ions to come; he would have his folly triumph over oblivion, 
)hich should have been as welcome to him as death; he 
nshes posterity to be informed of his existence, and he 
widd have it remember forever that he was a fool. 

— Montesquieu 



CONTENT/ON S^ 



Page 

Land of the Free 11 

Sea Eddies 13 

Cape Haitien Scenes 14 

A Tar-Baby Tyrant 18 

Poor Progress 21 

Port de Paix 30 

Passing the Bnccaneers 32 

Gonaives and Knaves 34 

A Black Hero Z1 

Gospel Truth of St. Mark.. 40 
Pestilential Port-au-Prince.. 41 

Moral Relaxations. 45 

A Bad Occupation 47 

Woebegone Miragoane .... 52 

Jeremie and Dumas 54 

Awful Aux Cayes 56 

Jacmel Jottings 60 

St. Dominic Devils 62 

Sacred and Profane History 64 
Mayaguez Misfortunes .... 74 

Ponce Pencilings 11 

A Military Course 80 

A Crack-Brained Butcher. . 82 

The Madhouse 84 

Mars Memorials 86 

Bad Folks 87 

San Juan Sights 88 

A Pagan Christmas 90 

Towns and Traits 92 

Curacao Carousings 94 



Island Life and Death 



100 



Page 

A Sea Sodom 104 

High Finance and Hotel 

Life 110 

Caracas Abominations 112 

Feting the French 114 

Bullfight and Riot ^..116 

Dead Game Sports 119 

''Priestiferous" Venezuela ..121 

Highbrow Notes 124 

Feet of Clay 127 

Mucho Disgusto ! 130 

Our March to the Sea 134 

Vile Valencia 136 

Puerto Cabello Afflictions. . 139 

"Henri of Navarre" 143 

La Guayra, Carupano, 

Margarita 144 

Carib Isles 147 

Inn-conveniences 148 

Dogs, Dung, Devotion .... .150 
Guadeloupe Attractions ...152 
Sailors and Wassailers ....156 

Wrecked 159 

Dirty Baths and Books 160 

Naughty Martinique 162 

Before the Mast 165 

Cuban Towns 167 

The Seamy Side of Havana. 168 

Advertising Florida 178 

My Native Land, 

Good-Night 183 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

SEA SODOMS— Cover Design 

DAUGHTERS OF TROPICAL FRANCE— Frontispiece 

A MORRILL CENSOR 

HAITIAN JAZZ— PORT-AU-PRINCE 

A DOMINGO TAR-BABY 

PORTO RICAN MOTHER AND CHILD 

CURACAO REVELLERS 

CARIBBEAN COQUETTES 

PUERTO CABELLO, VENEZUELA 

A LANGUID ISLAND LADY 

THE POINT A PITRE MARKET— GUADELOUPE 

MARTINIQUE MARDI GRAS 

HAVANA CARNIVAL FLOAT 



But the men of Sodom mere wicked and sinners before 
the Lord exceedingly. 

— Genesis 13-13 

— A crew of pirates are driven by a storm- they knov: 
not whither; at length a boy discovers land from the top- 
mast; they go on shore to rob and plunder; they see a harm- 
less people, are entertained with kindness; they give the 
country a new name; they take formal possession of it 
for their king; they set up a rotten plank, or a stone, for a 
memorial; they murder two or three dozen of the natives, 
bring away a couple more, by force, for a sample; return 
home and get their pardon. Here commences a new domin- 
ion acquired with a title by divine right. Ships are sent 
with the first opportunity ; the natives driven out or de- 
stroyed; their princes tortured to discover their gold; a free 
license given to all acts of inhumanity and lu^t, the earth 
reeking with the blood of its inhabitants; and this execrable 
crew of butchers, employed in so pious an exhibition, is a 
modern colony, sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous 
and barbarous people. 

— Dean Swift 



SEA SODOMS 



LAND OF THE FREE 

Hurrah ! It was November 11th, 1920, and Minneapolis 
was celebrating with music, flags and oratory the double- 
holiday of the anniversary of the Armistice with its triumph 
of democracy, and the tercentenary of the landing of the 
Pilgrims who came with a cargo of liberty and toleration. 

On this red-letter day of patriotism, to thoroughly ap- 
preciate I was alive and a free American citizen, I was sud- 
denly summoned to appear before a secret agent of the 
Washington Department of State. The official inquisitor 
said my book on South America, "To Hell and Back," had 
been translated into Spanish, and Latin-American press 
comment was raising Pandemonium from Panama to Pata- 
gonia; Washington wanted to know the name of the Ameri- 
can publisher, when and where it was printed, how many 
editions, if it violated any law and could be suppressed ; and 
asked him to send a copy at once to Room 103, Department 
of State, Washington, D. C. 

Why this sudden interest in a book written six years 
ago? Because it had exposed the filth and falsehood of 
South America, and lifted the lid so the world could see and 
smell what was there? Because it had turned the light of 
"pitiless publicity" on Democratic diplomuts sent there to 
misrepresent us? Because it might interfere with or injure 
our trade relations? 

It was this same administration of liberty and tolera- 
tion that tried to prevent me from taking a pleasure tour to 
Hawaii and the West Indies the last two years, in 1918 
confiscated my passport to Ecuador without reason, and 
arrested me for my Mexico book, in which, in accordance 
with my calling, I had probed the moral ulcer with a pen. 
Of course, I know it is wrong for a minister to disclose 
immoral conditions in these countries, and that his passport 
should be taken up — as in the days of Peter the Great, trav- 
eling is treason — for when the M. E. Church Board asked 



12 SEASODOMS 

the State Department to place restrictions on passports of 
U. S. citizens who crossed the Mexican border at Tia Juana 
to run and patronize a city of vice, booze and gambling, did 
not the Secretary of State, Bainbridge Colby, reply, "It is 
not deemed advisable to revoke permit cards on the mere 
ground that the conduct of the traveler constitutes a viola- 
tion of good morals, as the Department does not wish to 
constitute itself a censor of morals"? Matamoros is an- 
other haven across the line for those hell-bent on having a 
good time, and it is not difficult for such worthy citizens as 
gamblers, crooks, drunkards and courtezans to get permis- 
sion to go there. The State Department shows joyful alac- 
rity, too, in granting passports to pilgrims bound for Ha- 
vana and the wicked wet West Indies — at $10 a head. 

I gave the agent ''To Hell and Back" to forward to 
Washington, and trust the invisible inquisitor enjoyed it. 
That night I thanked God I was an American citizen, and be- 
longed to a country of freedom, democracy, toleration and 
liberty of speech and pen for everybody at home and abroad. 

Perhaps Pascal was right when he said man lost happi- 
ness by not remaining home — but Voltaire declares happi- 
ness is a myth invented by Satan for man's despair, John- 
son and Schopenhauer both affirm happiness does not exist, 
and Carlyle writes that happiness is not the object of life. 
To forget my troubles, I bought a ticket to Haiti, but it was 
necessary first to procure a landing permit before sailing, 
for the Haitians are very strict since Columbus and the 
Marines landed on their island and on them. 

The day before leaving New York I visited the Amer- 
ican Museum of Natural History and saw exhibits from 
every known part of the world. I thought how it would take 
ages of travel and millions of money to go to all these places, 
how much time and money I had spent to see things far 
away which were right here, and envied Fortunatus, the 
mediaeval globe-trotter, who had a magic purse always full, 
and a wishing-cap that could transport him in a wink wher- 
ever he wanted to go. 

The "Allianca" sailed away Saturday afternoon at 
five — the buildings climbed the sky as if to scrape a hole 
through the clouds and let the light through on the city 
wrapped in slate-gray mist — Liberty looked like the mere 



SEASODOMS 13 

ghost of what she had been — and our little bark slipped out 
into the big dark. 

SEA EDDIES 

"Bomby" breezes welcomed us Sunday morning. The 
air was clear, but the rough water cleared the deck of pas- 
sengers, who went below — not to hear me preach, or to make 
a contribution in a collection plate for some Seaman's Or- 
phan Home, but to their staterooms to make offerings to 
Neptune in the receptacles placed for that purpose. 

Lurching into the empty smoke-room, parlor and salon, 
I found Christian Science pamphlets dealt out for Sunday 
reading, but there were no readers except myself, and as I 
turned the pages I discovered there was no such thing as 
sea-sickness. Amazed at what I saw, or thought I saw, I 
desired to discuss the matter with the dear old lady who 
owned the literature and had it distributed, but alas, she, 
too, was below decks wrestling with the problem whether 
her soul or stomach was master. Her philosophy might do 
on solid land, not in the "eddies" of the sea where she was 
in danger of making shipwreck of her faith. 

Doubtless, what does good is good, and this ''sanitary 
system" has straightened up and out some of' my Epicurean 
friends who never attended any church, Jew, Gentile, 
Protestant or Roman Catholic. If Mrs. Eddy had been a 
fellow passenger and stopped over at Haiti, I think she 
never would have written, "Man is incapable of sin," "Sin 
is a lie — illusion, nothing." As man, minister and Mason, I 
am in search of light, but up to present writing must con- 
fess I prefer my mother's Bible to Mrs. Eddy's 
anti-Christian and anti-Biblical "key" which uses 
the Scriptures in a Pickwickian sense, and, instead of 
opening a door of hope in respect to the Creator and crea- 
tion, sin and salvation, life, death, personal resurrection and 
immortality, locks me in a cell of dismal doubt. Mary Baker 
Eddy's status has recently been up in court. Like Banquo's 
ghost she will not "down." Poor woman ! she only left sev- 
eral millions of money, was muchly married, is accused of 
plagiarizing another's philosophy, and has given the world 



14 SEASODOMS 

"Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," which, if 
you can afford to buy and accept its teaching, you must 
reject your Bible. Now her church officers are fighting 
among themselves as to whether she is, while dead, as much 
an active officer of the church as when alive, and the center 
and circumference of Christian Science. Cervantes smiled 
Spain's chivalry away, and Mark Twain has written a book 
on ''Christian Science" which makes one smile at this new 
"Maryolatry." 

King Arthur had his knights of the Round-table, and 
we had our King day and night at the long table in the din- 
ing salon. Chief steward King, as a man, had traveled East, 
and saw to it that the food served us didn't make us "go 
West." Though the waves had rocked him around the 
world, he was far from being sleepy like Dickens' fat boy 
"Joe," and the periphery of his paunch showed he was an 
all "round" good fellow. 

Wednesday the trade winds blew the Bird, Fortune and 
Castle islands into view. The Bahamas are noted for rum 
and the export of sponges, and now they import human 
sponges from the States who soak up all the rum. Ships 
seldom stop here on account of reefs. A tiny sail boat 
came out for magazines and newspapers, but we didn't slow 
down, or stop to give any, either because Captain Johnson 
couldn't spare the time, or because he knew the evil effects 
of such "literature" on the minds of innocent natives. 



CAPE HAITIEN SCENES 

Thursday we neared Cape Haitien and rose early to get 
a first view of the bay, green hills and mountain:^. Nature 
rewarded us with a bright sunrise that made it difficult to 
believe the black colors in which Haiti's history has been 
painted. A lighter fleet of Bedlam-voiced boatmen oared 
out to us, yelling, gesticulating, swearing, headed their craft 
into each other, struck at one another with oars, and jumped 
from boat to boat to be in the first and best position to 
load. One crossed our bows as if to get wrecked and receive 
a reward for damages. When they finally lay alongside, the 
men loafed for several hours, doing nothing save resting 



SEA SODOMS 15 

from their labor. They looked like big gorillas, and I can't 
forget how they tore out with nothing on to tear, and their 
pantomime and panting without pants. But it would take 
more than this to shock some of our first-class lady passen- 
gers who had spent their time drinking, smoking, gambling 
and flirting. One had the ''habit" of lying in transparent 
drapery, or the altogether, while another in her pious mo- 
ments perused that Christian classic, "The Homosexual Life 
of Louis XIV." 

The doctor inspected us, but who inspected the doctor? 
Two stalwart blacks rowed us to shore. Cape Haitien was 
once known as the "Paris" of Santo Domingo.. The only 
likeness to the French capital I found was in the dirty hotels 
and bad drinks sold in them. The town was earthquaked 
in 1842, and the auto we hired looked like one of the ruins. 
It started with a jerk, bucked like a broncho, then suddenly 
stopped and only moved again when the driver called in his 
friends to give it a shove. Haiti roads are ruinous to autos 
as well as pocketbooks, $200 being a nominal charge for a 
15-hour ride from here to Port-au-Prince ; the price of gaso- 
line is higher than the mountains you cross, and the car is 
ready for the junk-pile at the end of the trip. And this road 
is one of the boasted "improvements" our occupation has 
made possible. 

I should like to pass a sponge over the slate of Cape 
Haitien's dirty history, but candor forbids. The bard who 
sings Haiti's sad story should do it in cata"strophes." The 
Cape, of yore yclept Guarico, was made an ashpile by brands 
of burning hate hurled against it by revolutionary chiefs, the 
French fleet and Christophe. The yellow death was the 
black's ally and slew 30,000 of Leclerc's men. It was bom- 
barded by England in 1865. The 1842 earthquake made the 
city a cemetery and piled up the walls and houses like tombs. 
The natives from the countryside, instead of helping the 
distressed, helped themselves to their goods, thus illustrat- 
ing the filibustering and buccaneering practise of the early 
settlers who came from Tortuga. Bombing and burning did 
not destroy it, for like a Phoenix it rose again, and today 
there are substantial w^arerooms, homes, churches, etc. 

The town is an Episcopal See, and one should not only 
see the church on the plaza, but hear how the brethren love 



16 SEASODOMS 

each other. I learned that a big spiritual chief had an 
'*altar"cation here with one of his flock. He struck a sister 
in an unbrotherly way and soon the melee was like the Gos- 
pel, ''free for all." 

In this city of riot, revolution and barricade, the only 
"hair-raising" barricade I saw was a young girl, seated on 
a narrow sidewalk blocking the way, having her hair done 
up in a sort of a coiffure a la Congo by a mulatto maiden. 
Just far away enough to keep the stray hairs from the milk, 
stood a milk-white steed, i. e,, a dairy horse, with cans of 
milk guarded by a black beauty driver. If you are unmar- 
ried and color-blind, come to Cape Haitien, for I was told 
there was a colored charmer here who will give $10,000 
dowry to any white man marrying her. Food for your in- 
sides is cooked outside on the streets. There was an expan- 
sive, swarthy, smiling sultana, with head in bandana, pre- 
siding over an iron kettle, and every time we passed she 
bestirred herself and the pot, asking us for "something for 
the pot." Was she a black Medea? Could she put us in the 
pot, or what was in the pot in us, and make us young again? 
Who knows, she may have been a voodoo priestess. I was 
afraid to make any experiment, and took pot-luck lunch else- 
where. 

Coffee is a leading product of the port. In one building 
I saw about fifty women singing as they sorted the fragrant 
berry. This was the only cafe chantant in the Cape. Haiti 
coffee has color, strength and flavor — there is a reason. I 
photoed a half -naked black man walking barefoot through 
the piles of the drying beans as he raked them. 

I came upon a grave-digger in the cemetery (the usual 
place to find one) , Without any Shakespeare, Gray or Blair 
soliloquy, I recalled some of the food I had seen on sale in 
the market, the fact that the barricaded French here ate 
dog, and opined if I stayed too long my friends would know 
where my permanent address and remains could be found. 

I went to jail, the cleanest place I had seen. Were one 
to rem.ain in town long, I fear he might be tempted to be bad 
and get arrested in order to have good accommodation be- 
hind the walls. Still, there are a few prejudiced persons 
who prefer liberty in a filthy hut to slavery in a sanitary 
cell. As to jail society, I doubt whether it was worse or as 



SEASODOMS 17 

bad as some I found in both black and white communities 
outside the walls. 'Tis said that when the prisoners return 
from outside work, often a free man will fall in line and 
enter the jail, knowing he will be better off there. What a 
country, where the best and most popular institution is a 
prison! Perhaps fond mothers nightly sing, "There, little 
baby, don't you cry, you'll be a prisoner by and by." Men 
are jailed for pilfering some trifling thing, Joy men who have 
stolen the island from them. Some were learning to carve 
wood as well as to cut their neighbor's throat. Many were 
working in the open court, cleaning up the yard, bare- 
headed in the hot sun, clad in loose jackets and pants. 
Others had been brought in half-starved, accused perhaps of 
being bold bandits, yet they were so weak they could scarce- 
ly stand and dragged themselves about like sick cats. Big 
game for marines to shoot at ! Others toiled with shackles 
on their legs, who, if free, couldn't scale the low wall, they 
were so feeble. I felt like asking the guard why he didn't 
pick on a man of his size. The hospital and kitchen were 
not far apart — whether there is any significance in this fact 
I do not know. 

In the American occupation camp I talked with boys 
who wanted to decamp — a motion seconded by most of the 
natives who would like to repeat the history here when the 
blacks drove the whites into the sea. I was told that on the 
15th of January, 1921, crepe was to be hung on the houses 
of Cape Haitien in memory of those killed by the marines 
the year before. 

Two of our ship's black crew came ashore, rummed up, 
butted each other's heads like goats to the amusement of the 
spectators, entered a small saloon, and, because their artistic 
eye did not appreciate the style of furniture, showed 
their disapproval by smashing it. Their criticism was not 
relished by the proprietress, who sent for the police-captain 
of the port who came and w^hisked them away to the ''cooler" 
for several hours, after which they were escorted to the 
boat. Instead of being flogged they were "logged." 

I forgot to tell thee, geographical reader, that Cape 
Haitien's harbor is protected by a watch-dog reef, and that 
years ago it set its teeth into Columbus' flagship, "Santa 
Maria," which was wrecked near here Christmas eve, 1492. 



18 SEASODOMS 

What a fine Christmas gift it would have been to the inhabi- 
tants of the Caribbean if Chris, and his crew had gone to 
the bottom with it — but cruel Fate works in a mischievous 
way its blunders to perform. 



A TAR-BABY TYRANT 

Chris, told his Spanish sovereigns that Haiti lacked 
iron — it never has lacked iron despots, "black"smiths who 
ruled with an iron rod, who framed laws only to break them, 
and made massacre a fine art. In sight of the Cape rise 
mountains of fantastic outline, the most striking of which 
is 2,600 feet in height known as the ''Bishop's Hat." Cleri- 
cally, there have been many strange things thought out 
under a bishop's chapeau, yet nothing more curious than 
the Citadel, built by Christophe on the summit of Bonnet a 
UEveque. 

Christophe was the ogre king of Haiti. There is doubt 
whether he was born at St. Kitts or Grenada in 1767 or 
1769, but 'tis certain it would have been better for Haiti had 
he never been born anywhere or at any time. He spent 
many happy youthful years as a slave. He was black, big, 
brave, brainy — fine waiter characteristics — and came to 
Haiti as a waiter. Tired of few tips, small wages and many 
curses from those he served, he decided to become master, 
to have others wait on him, and became Lieutenant to Tous- 
saint L'Ouverture. He had an appetite for something bet- 
ter than crumbs swept up from the table, and as Catherine 
of Russia jumped from a washtub to the throne, so he 
leaped from a table to an emperor's seat. These two 
''sports" made record high-jumps in history. 

Dessalines, the usurping emperor, followed Toussaint, 
and had Christophe build a fort in the North to withstand 
the French attempt to reconquer the island. Tradition says 
Christophe played the Brutus part and killed his ruler, 
shoved the two French fort architects off the wall to the 
rocks below, and in his Citadel up here became monarch of 
all he surveyed. Like an early Roman emperor, he has the 
reputation for being quite original and hellish in his atroci- 
ties, the number of which would fill a volume and a Boche 



SEASODOMS 19 

with envy. He marched soldiers over the parapet walls, 
recalling the gentle chastisement Tiberius administered to 
his friends, whom, after torturing, he tossed from a preci- 
pice into the sea where soldiers broke their bones with poles 
and oars. When it comes to torture, Christophe is a boon 
companion to About's ''King of the Mountains." But let 
us not be too severe in our judgments, to every man his 
taste in pleasure. He wasn't addicted to movies and golf, 
so he invited his friends to little parties on the roof -garden 
of his Citadel, told them to see the beautiful view — and die, 
since they couldn't go to Naples. 

Seen from afar, the Citadel resembles the Acropolis, 
though it could more fittingly be called a Necropolis, if it 
be true that 30,000 perished in its construction. Like the 
Egyptian slaves who built the pyramids under the lash of 
hippopotamus-hide whips, they worked without pay, the 
only things generously bestov/ed on them being curses and 
lashes with cow-skin whips. When a hundred men found 
it hard to carry a cannon up here, Christophe shot every 
fourth man, then every third man, until only fifty were left 
who pulled it into position. There were dungeons where 
he dumped men like coal in the cellar. Near his palace of 
Sans Souci there was a star-apple tree where he held star- 
chamber sessions that were not "sans souci" to the accused. 
This tar-baby tyrant, who christened himself Henry I., was 
so great that people were afraid to look into his black face 
and so knelt and dislocated their vertebrae before him. 
With a wink of the eye or wave of the hand he consigned 
them to the dungeon or his "jumping-off place." He would 
order a carriage made, and if the builder said it would take 
three months, Christophe swore that if it were not done in 
two weeks Death would furnish him a hearse. In the valley 
of Milot below the Citadel he built a palace, calling it Sans 
Souci, yet it w^as not without care. Rumour hath it that 
in its rooms ye black prince was haunted by ghosts, such as 
disturbed the peace of mind of good King Richard and 
Macbeth. 'Twas here he shot himself, after learning that 
he had been betrayed — perhaps the best thing he ever did, 
though there were many others who would have been 
pleased to do it for him. And it happened thusly. A stroke 
of apoplexy gave him a foul blow% paralyzing him below the 



20 SEA SODOMS 

waist while attending mass — for you know most murderers 
and criminals in history are religious men — a massage of 
rum and pepper did his legs little good, for his journey was 
drawing to an end. Forsaken by all, he killed himself, and 
posted on his way to a suicide's hell where his fellow-dic- 
tator devils welcomed him saying, "Aha, thou art become 
one of us." 

He reigned — fire and brimstone — thirteen years. Un- 
lucky number, unlucky man, unlucky island! Writers are 
prone to ridicule his opera bouffe court and etiquette, his 
eating and drinking to the health of his Dukes Marmalade 
and Lemonade, though it was no more ludicrous than the 
society of Europe which he imitated. He is believed to 
have carelessly left $15,000,000 somewhere in the Citadel, 
a sort of Captain Kidd's treasury which hasn't been found. 
Here he was buried, the body being placed in lime — it 
should have been chloride of lime, according to his reputa- 
tion. His tomb, builded of granite and brick, has been 
looted, and his disconsolate ghost hovers about the Citadel 
like the clouds. 

The Citadel walls vary from 80, 110 to 130 feet in 
height, the stone being brought from adjacent mountains. 
It has four floors, galleries with guns, treasure chests, piles 
of cannon balls. Like most writers I saw all this from a 
distance, for the Bishop's Hat is difficult of ascent, requires 
a lot of time, in the rainy season is impossible, and is hard 
on the "animals," a burro having recently rolled over the 
precipice with his rider. I suppose it is quite stupendous, 
awe-inspiring, wondrous, sublime, etc., and everything else 
it has been called. My eyes have beheld Rhine castles, Greek 
temples, Mexican mounds, Egyptian and Yucatan Pyra- 
mids, and ruins in India and Java, but distance now is more 
enchanting than the climb. I am becoming blase as Thack- 
eray when he viewed the Pyramids and dubbed them an 
"exaggeration of bricks." Of course, the Citadel is a good 
place for a poet to get rid of his similes and metaphors, a 
hiker of his surplus energy, a tourist of his money, a church- 
member of his religion; for an historian to get a page, a 
moralist a reflection, and a lazy Haitian some money — 
were there any tourist conveniences. In the future 'twill 
doubtless make a fine stopping-place for an airship to serve 



SEASODOMS 21 

passengers a light lunch and permit them to ruminate on 
the glory whose paths lead but to the grave, whether up 
here with Christophe, or down below in the sea with Chris', 
crew. 



POOR PROGRESS 

Oh, for the Millennium when we shall not have to think, 
to recall past history of men and things better forgotten — 
when there will be little to do but perform life's serious 
duties of eating, drinking, sleeping and multiplying! Does 
the thoughtful reader exclaim, "What, would you have me 
forget History which reveals the progress of mankind, and 
how the 'thoughts of men are widened with the process of 
the suns' " ? No indeed ! Like Ovid, "I am about to sing 
of facts" — historic facts suggested by the deeds of that 
Haitian apostle, black of skin and soul. 

Pheretime, according to Herodotus, impaled her ene- 
mies, and having cut off the breasts of their wives, studded 
the walls with them. 

Suetonius tells how Tiberius induced "people to drink 
a large quantity of wine, and then tied up their members 
with harp-strings, thus tormenting them at once by the 
tightness of the ligature and the stoppage of their urine." 
In his day it was not lawful to strangle virgins, so they 
were first deflowered by the executioner, then strangled. 

Barbarian women beat their Carthaginian prisoners 
like so much linen, putting out their eyes with the bodkins of 
their hair. The men came next and tortured them from 
their feet, which they cut off at the ankles, to their fore- 
heads, from which they took crowns of skin to put upon their 
own heads. Others envenomed the victims' wounds by pour- 
ing into them dust, vinegar and fragments of pottery. 

Caligula, after disfiguring many persons of honorable 
rank, by branding them in the face with hot irons, con- 
demned them to the mines, to work in repairing the high- 
ways, or to fight with wild beasts; or tying them by the 
neck and heels, in the manner of beasts carried to slaughter, 
would shut them up in cages, or saw them asunder. Nor 
were these severities merely inflicted for crimes of great 



22 SEASODOMS 

enormity, but for making remarks on his public games, or 
for not having sworn by the genius of the emperor. He 
compelled parents to be present at the execution of their 
sons; and to one who excused himself on account of indis- 
position, he sent his own litter. Another he invited to his 
table immediately after he had witnessed the spectacle and 
coolly challenged him to jest and be merry. He ordered 
the overseer of the spectacles and wild beasts to be scourged 
in fetters during several days successively in his own pres- 
ence, and did not put him to death until he was disgusted 
with the stench of his putrified brain. He burned alive, in 
the centre of the arena of the amphitheatre, the writer of a 
farce for some witty verse which had a double meaning. A 
Roman Knight, who had been exposed to the wild beasts, 
crying out that he was innocent, he called back, and having 
had his tongue cut out remanded him to the arena. Being 
very desirous to have a senator torn to pieces, he employed 
some persons to call him a public enemy, fall upon him as 
he entered the senate house, stab him with their styles, 
and deliver him to the rest to tear asunder. Nor was he 
satisfied, until he saw the limbs and bowels of the man, 
after they had been dragged through the streets, piled up in 
a heap before him. 

Persons were often put to the torture in his presence, 
whilst he was dining or carousing. A soldier, who was an 
adept in the art of beheading, used at such times to take 
off the heads of prisoners who were brought in for the 
purpose. At Rome, in a public feast, a slave having stolen 
some thin plates of silver with which the couches were 
inlaid, he delivered him immediately to an executioner, 
with orders to cut off his hands, and lead him round the 
guests, with them hanging from his neck before his breast, 
and a label, signifying the cause of his punishment. 

Russia's rulers took supreme delight in torturing their 
people. History records of Ivan the Terrible that from 
some he had the epidermis removed, after which they were 
flayed. Others he carved, a leg or an arm at a time, which 
he fed to hounds but seeing to it that the amputated were 
sustained with drink, that their vital organs were protected, 
seeing to it that they were tended, nursed, upheld, en- 



SEA SODOMS 23 

abled as long as possible to look on the feast of which their 
limbs were the courses. Others died in sacks, were trampled 
by maddened horses. But some danced to his piping. Put 
in cages, they were burned alive. He had cauldrons, more 
gibbets; saws that cut you in two; pinchers that pulled 
your tongue out; machines that slipped you, like an eel, 
from your skin. Under Dmitri, the Sorcerer, ''infants un- 
born, were torn from their mothers. From gutted horses, 
hearts were removed. With both a horrible hash was made 
and strewn, full-handed as grain is strewn before the 
walls." Peter the Great taught people how to die with 
their nostrils torn out, eyes extracted, ears severed, body 
beaten into a bag of pulp, or, in the ardent chambers, 
cremated while yet alive. One night in Moscow, between 
drinks of brandy, he decapitated twenty men. 

The pious Louis XI of France imprisoned people, who 
differed with him, in iron cages. At the execution of one 
duke he caused the duke's young children to be placed under 
the scaffold erected for their father's execution, that they 
might receive his blood upon them, with which they went 
away all covered; and in this condition were conducted to 
the Bastile in wooden cages, made in the form of horse- 
panniers, where the confinement their bodies suffered put 
them to perpetual torture. This godly king always went 
covered with relics, and constantly wore a leaden figure of 
the Virgin Mary in his hat, of which, it is said, he used 
to ask pardon of his murders before he committed them. 
Dying, he thought to recruit the weak remains of himself 
that were left, by drinking the blood of young children to 
revive his waning strength. 

The penalty of death for heresy was declared by Pope 
Leo L to be the only sufficient remedy. The following were 
some of the best approved and most fashionable methods: 
Thrown to wild beasts; fastened to crosses and wrapped 
with combustibles for torches ; tied with ropes and cast into 
the sea; flesh and members of the body torn off with 
pinchers; stoned, burned, drowned, stung with serpents; 
hung on sharp hooks and smoked with wet straw and hay 
until suffocated ; stuck with pins and needles from head to 
foot; whipped to death; skinned alive; dragged at horses' 



24 SEASODOMS 

heels ; torn apart ; boiled in water or oil ; augurs burned into 
eyes and brain; forced over precipices to fall on beds of 
sharp steel spikes ; and blown up with a bellows until bodies 
burst. 

Columbus wrote a letter— now one of the priceless 
treasures of the N. Y. Lenox Library— telling that when 
he first came to Haiti the natives thought he and his men 
had come from heaven. He said they were amiable and 
kind, and was so overjoyed at his rich find that he ended 
his letter by asking his king and queen and all other coun- 
tries of Christendom to give thanks for his victory and gift : 
''Let religious processions be solemnized ; let sacred festivals 
be given ; let the churches be covered with festive garlands. 
Let Christ rejoice on earth, as he rejoices in heaven, when 
he foresees coming to salvation so many souls of people 
hitherto lost." 

But Columbus' "salvation" meant the Indians' dam- 
nation. They were yoked like cattle. The men were driven 
to the mines and the women to the fields to work, and a 
million of them were wiped out. They were torn to pieces 
like dog-meat and fed to bloodhounds. With pointed re- 
marks the Spaniards stuck sharp sticks through them and 
burned them alive. If an Indian struck back in self-defense, 
and didn't turn his other cheek, but killed his master, 50 
Indians were selected to have their hands chopped off. 
Little children were immersed, not for baptism, but drowned 
like cats and dogs. To honor the loving Christ and his 12 
Apostles, they seized thirteen Indians, hung them up in a 
row so their toes just touched the ground, and slowly pricked 
them to death with their sword-points. One Spanish cap- 
tain complained that his nap was being disturbed by the 
shrieks of half a dozen Indians suspended over a slow- 
burning fire, and ordered them killed at once, but the Chris- 
tian Inquisitor, who was enjoying the spectacle, simply 
gagged the poor victims. Indians absent from mass were 
flogged with 40 blows and often massacred. Six were 
burned alive in one fire for heresy — a gentle cure. Others 
lived to be carried away with imported diseases, overwork 
and starvation. It was this hell-sent, heaven-damned 
Christopher Columbus to whom we are indebted for the in- 



SEASODOMS 25 

troduction of slavery in the New World. Within 12 years 
after his arrival a million were sacrified on the altars of 
iiist, lucre and cruelty, making the devil a saint and hell 
heaven in comparison. In the morning, instead of going 
to the garden for head-cabbage, the Spaniards sharpened 
their knives and cut off human heads enough to fill many 
baskets. The cross was exchanged for the sword, and cries 
made from whiplashes drowned out the loving accents of 
the Sermon on the Mount. Chris, said it was Christian to 
enslave the Carib cannibal, sell him and send l:im where 
he could be baptized and saved from eternal hell. He de- 
clared the fettered Indians could be taken in payment for 
the cargoes of wine, seeds, cattle and other provisions which 
must come from Spain to support the colonies. So he 
shipped them as slaves to Spain. Is it to be marvelled at 
that Indian mothers beat in their children's heads, drank 
poison, jumped off the mountains, hung themselves to trees 
and disemboweled themselves ? Evidently they had a change 
of mind and heart, and no longer thought that Christopher 
Columbus and his crew sailed to their lovely isle from heav- 
en. 

The Spaniards were just as humane to the black slaves 
imported from Africa when the supply of Indians ran out. 
They whipped them until their backs were raw, then poured 
brine on their wounds. I think it very strange that the 
negroes objected and mutinied. The Frenchmen who came 
later to Haiti were no better to their slaves. It was too 
slow work to line them up by a trench and shoot them in, 
so they chained them together, took them out to sea and 
threw them overboard like an anchor, or broke them on 
the wheel and burned them alive. 

Following are some Christian reproofs administered by 
the white French colonists to their black heathen slaves: 
One Poncet mutilated his slaves and killed his own illegiti- 
mate daughter by pouring boiling wax in her ears; Cor- 
bierre buried his slaves alive; Chapusiet, incensed by the 
loss of one of his mules, caused the keeper to be put alive 
into, the interior of the dead animal when he and the beast 
were then buried ; Jouaneau nailed one of his slaves to the 
walls by the ears, then cut them off wath a razor and roasted 



26 SEASODOMS 

them, compelling the victim to eat them; De Cockburn, a 
knight- of St. Louis, buried his slaves up to the neck and 
used their heads as a game of ten-pins ; Michau threw his 
slaves, v^hile alive, in a hot oven; Desdunes burned more 
than 45 blacks alive, men, v^omen and children; Jarosay, 
in order to have only dumb servants, cut out their tongues ; 
Madame Ducoudrai gave from two to three hundred lashes 
to her slaves, and hot sealing wax was afterwards poured 
on their lacerated flesh; Madame Charette put iron masks 
over her slaves' faces and left them to starve to death; 
Lartigue caused his servant Joseph to be quartered alive; 
Guilgaud, Naud, Bocalin tied their slaves to trees and left 
them there to die from exposure ; some planters buried the 
blacks up to their shoulders, and with pincers forced them 
to open their mouths and to swallow boiling syrup, while 
others had their prisoners sawed between two boards. 

In the race wars that followed the whites tied a negro 
70 years old to the tail of a horse and dragged him through 
the streets. At one place they killed 2,000 mulattresses. 
A white man named Larousse killed Madame Beaulieu, a 
colored woman in an advanced state of pregnancy. Her 
abdomen was opened, child torn out and thrown into the 
fire. 

Two victims, without lawyer or trial, were thus sen- 
tenced : "Whilst alive to have their arms, legs, thighs and 
spines broken; and afterwards to be placed on a wheel, 
their faces toward heaven, and there to stay as long as it 
would please God to preserve their lives; and when dead, 
their heads were to be cut off and exposed on poles." 

The French set up a post in the centre of a circle where 
seats had been placed for General Rochambeau, his staff 
officers and many of the colonists and their wives. This was 
the comedy they witnessed. General Boyer's black servant 
was tied to the post and famished bloodhounds were let into 
the arena. Because the dogs were slow in tearing him to 
pieces. General Boyer took his sword and with a single 
stroke disemboweled the poor servant. Then he caught hold 
of one of the dogs and forced its mouth into the vibrating 
entrails of the victim, and amid the applause of the specta- 



SEASODOMS 27 

tors and the sound of a military band, the servant was torn 
to pieces by the bloodhounds. 

The French were most merciful to their prisoners. At 
one time 1,500 were ordered killed, but many did not die 
and were left in a horribly mutilated state. The silence of 
the night was broken by their moans and cries which were 
heard at a great distance. 

Naturally a rivalry arose, and the negro heathen, not to 
be outdone by the Christian whites, retaliated. They car- 
ried a white infant on a spear-head as a banner of liberty, 
ravished girls in the presence of their parents, sawed white 
men to pieces between planks, drank human blood mixed 
with tafia rum, nailed police officers to gates, chopped off 
legs and arms. The heads of whites, stuck on poles, were 
hung around negro camps. The whites struck back and 
swung negroes from trees and gibbets. Afterwards both 
whites and blacks praised God, and sang "Te Deum 
laudamus." 

Dessalines, one of the great men of Haiti (see Field- 
ing's definition of "greatness" in his "Jonathan Wild"), 
strung up 500, mostly officers, in the presence of their 
army. He beat a poor woman, unable to work in the field, 
causing the premature birth of her child. On the slightest 
pretext he ordered a man or woman whipped to death. An- 
other emperor, Soloque, grew angry at his army, put them 
in pits, kept them without food, and left them to be devoured 
by vermin. While on a boat Dardignac, a mulatto, tied bars 
to a friend's ankles and shoved him overboard. Seven pris- 
oners were set before him at a table in a semi-circle; he 
took a gun and shot them down one by one. A negro was 
caught, his ears cropped, the tiD of his nose cut off, his 
mouth slit to his neck, his legs broken with musket balls, 
after which he was tossed into a cactus bush. A recent 
Haitian president was cut up, dragged through the streets, 
mutilated, the mob carrying his privates publicly through 
the city. 

Voodooistic negroes brought to Haiti many beautiful 
beliefs and customs from Africa, their native land. One 
of the religious rites of the Voodoo ceremony included can- 
nibalism. They thought the kidneys of a child a delicacy, 



28 SEASODOMS 

As late as 1879 midwives rendered new-born babes insensi- 
ble, buried them alive, dug them up, restored them, killed 
and ate them. Detected, they received six months' impris- 
onment. In 1881, the flourishing days of Port-au-Prince, 
a doctor discovered the neck and shoulders of a human 
being on sale in the meat market. At St. Mark a cask of so- 
called *'pork" was found to contain fingernails and human 
flesh. President Salnave, in a voodoo ceremony, bathed in 
the blood of goats. Often the gore of goats, still warm, was 
put on the lips of initiates to seal them into silence. Pic- 
tures of the Virgin Mary and saints are to be seen on the 
walls of voodoo temples. In the past a Roman Catholic 
priest, to make a little money on the side, charged a fee to 
sprinkle holy water on the fetish or bless the voodoo stone 
paraphernalia brought from Africa. There are various cases 
where children, cut up, were found in baskets, and disem- 
boweled women in casks in outhouses. Not long ago women 
were arrested in the very act of eatins: a child raw whose 
blood had been sucked from the body. Some of the flesh had 
already been salted down for future use, and they were most 
deliberate in all this and not mad like that woman eating 
her child in Wiertz's painting. Voodoo priests employ 
agents to scour the country and find children for the rites. 
People have been arrested and imprisoned for digging up 
and eating corpses. Once in Port-au-Prince the body of a 
youth was found with a weapon piercing his heart, a thin 
hollow cane being inserted in the back as if to suck the 
blood. In Ju-Ju ceremonies Haitians drink animal blood 
mixed with white rum. Packages of salted human flesh, 
rolled up in leaves, have been unearthed in houses where 
sacrifices were offered. At one trial a witness testified a 
child was strangled, skinned, sliced, beheaded, the blood 
caught in a jar, that a procession was formed, the head 
borne aloft, and sacred songs were sung. Later at the feast 
the head was put in the pot with yams to make soup. A 
hungry woman sliced off a piece of the child's hand and ate 
it raw. An orgy followed, and in the morning the remains 
of the flesh were warmed up and eaten. 

During the last few years of the American occupation 
some of our marines were burned to death, their heart and 



SEASODOMS 29 

liver eaten by the anthropophagous natives, and their brains 
removed to grease bullets. Fiendish ! yes, but what did the 
marines do here? Killed several thousand, shot down inno- 
cent men, women and children with machine guns, com- 
mitted theft, arson, rape and murder, put blacks to torture 
to make them give information. During five years massacre 
of the Haitians, less than 20 Americans have been killed 
and wounded in action. Shooting **caco" bandits has been 
their pastime — ''bandits," because the natives refused to be 
made slaves by working on the roads. Investigations have 
disclosed that black prisoners have been saturated with kero- 
sene and set on fire. The U. S. boys inaugurated a form of 
torture known as *'sept" in which the victim's leg was com- 
pressed between two rifles and the pressure against the 
shin increased until agony compelled him to speak. An- 
other way to get answers to marine questions was to hang 
men and women by the neck until strangulation forced them 
to give the information. Machine .guns were often turned 
on crowds of unarmed natives. Innocent Haitians carry- 
ing arms were shot at sight. Prisoners' heads and faces 
were disfigured by beatings. A Haitian boy caught steal- 
ing sugar on the wharf, instead of being arrested, had his 
brains beaten out with a rifle. The marines committed 
horrible rapes on Haitian women. On one occasion a crowd 
of negroes was surprised at a cock-fight and killed with 
machine guns and rifle fire. 

But enough ! I fear the reader is yawning at this tame 
recital, and I wonder if he still thinks it necessary to read 
history to show the ''progress" of mankind. The naked 
truth of history is indecent, and so, as Thackeray observes, 
most history is writ on fig-leaves. Our own marines in 
Haiti are guilty of crimes that would have pleased Caligula, 
Torquemada, Louis XI, Columbus, Ovando and Peter the 
Great. If you are not satisfied with the few atrocities I 
have narrated, hark back to pre-Christian times, or listen 
to the bloody boasts of booted boobies who have returned 
from France and tell of things Caesar and the Duke of Alva 
would be ashamed of. If you haven't been on a battlefield, 
and can't find a soldier to tell you the truth, read Zola's 
"Debacle" and Andreyev's "Red Laugh," and you will see 



30 SEASODOMS 

how humanity is progressing. Truly, the trade of the sol- 
dier is the most honorable of all others, says Swift, be- 
cause a soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill in cold-blood as many 
of his own species who have never offended as possibly he 
can. Haiti is as celebrated in the history of peace, as hell 
in the annals of virtue. 

To return to my diary. At night the "Allianca" left 
the Cape and anchored outside, ready to sail in the morning. 
About midnight we took aboard new visitors. In coming 
on, one fell overboard and was not recovered. The other 
gained the deck and struck out so I thought he must be re- 
lated to Sharkey, the pugilist. He was tall, athletic and with 
a reach that could ''fin"ish one in short order. However, in a 
fight with the crew that night he was terribly cut up, and 
next day was buried in bur stomachs. Shark meat, like 
octopus, whale, mule, horse and rattlesnake, is good food 
when well-cooked. The shark isn't a sword-fish but can 
kill and disembowel with his saw-like teeth. Still it's all 
for food, not fun. He isn't a devil-fish though he has the 
reputation of one. Native mothers and teachers give him 
a bad name and scare the children, yet he isn't half as cruel 
as Alexander the Great, Christophe, or Capt. "Jinx" of 
our marines. 

PORT DE PAIX 

Westward ho for Port de Paix, the next port. We paid 
to come here, but were told there was no time to go ashore. 
We went, though there was the devil to pay, and met the 
obligation. *'L" and I were jawed and "rowed" over, and 
after the fight to reach land it really was a port of peace. 
Herodotus doubted the report there were people who slept 
six months of the year. Here he could have multiplied it 
by two, for the inhabitants act sleepy the year round. Like 
good boys we went to church to see the fathers, then to 
the sisters' convent to see the children. In European gal- 
leries I have seen pictures of the Holy Family — ^this group 
was different. Special pains were taken to teach the scholars 
nothing and give them diplomas of ignorance. The real 
problem in Haiti is to teach the teachers, 



SEASODOMS 31 

Perhaps ideals and morals would be higher if the town 
were not so low and marshy. Coffee is the leading product, 
but we had ours on board, and well we did, for they weren't 
selling any to strangers on shore. Commercially speaking, 
the bottom had fallen out of Haiti's coffee pot. Cocoa was 
plentiful. ' It was heaped up and drying in the streets, and 
being a drug on the market, I took some for medicinal 
purposes. Port de Paix is the ''retreat" of 10,000, though 
I couldn't find any of Xenephon's heroes on the corners 
shining shoes or selling flowers, tobacco, soda and cigars. 
There may be running fountains — I failed to see them — 
yet you can always see natives with running sores. Every 
dog has his day, and if those of Lazarus' time were here, 
there would be plenty doctor work to do. As it is, they are 
'licked" if they get in the way. Along shore I photographed 
log and dye wood, so these poor natives are doubtless able 
to have fine coffins. The market had a profusion of vaga- 
bonds and vegetables, and dirt enough to grow the latter 
without cultivating suburban gardens. I was disappointed 
in not finding voodoo human flesh for sale — although several 
market women might be had for a price. It was typical to 
see many people selling, but having little food to sell. The 
French General, Laveaux, shut up in this town in 1794, be- 
wailed the fact his men had no shoes, clothes, soap and so 
forth. Port de Paix seems to be no better off now, and 
looks anything but a Valparaiso ("valley of delight") 
which it was called by Chris, who came here on his first 
voyage. 

The citizens were well supplied with all diseases, ex- 
cept smallpox, and were expecting its arrival daily, since it 
was trying to make a conquest of the island. Photos of 
unfortunates with face and back in different stages of the 
disease were posted on street corner and in Gendarmerie. 

We received permission to enter the jail where was col- 
lected such an assortment of rags, bones and caricatures of 
humanity, that when I asked to take a photo the officer 
thought the effect would look too bad in the U. S., and only 
consented after removing some of the worst specimens. 
Poverty, Disease and Despair, those three ministering 
Graces of humanity, were present — high walls could not keep 



32 SEASODOMS 

them out. One poor fellow had been unsexed by a man from 
whom he had stolen a little fruit, a simple and pleasing pun- 
ishment prevalent among the natives. 

In 1665, French filibusters captured the city. It was 
settled by freebooters, men who felt free to kick away from 
legal restraint and make might right. Cain was the first 
city-founder, and students of history learn how the world's 
great cities have been founded and confounded by thieves, 
cut-throats and other gallant heroes, whether in Virginia 
or Australia. This town was the seat of the caciques, i. e., 
the old native chiefs, but they are gone and have taken 
their tale of woe with them. 

The ship was our home and we were glad to return. 
There is no place like home for friends or fights, and one 
of the latter was staged on our house-boat. This Friday 
was not good Friday but bad. During dinner the pas- 
sengers were entertained by a sideplay in the kitchen where 
two gentlemen of color disagreed about some little affair 
and started breaking dishes on each other's head and sharp- 
ening knives on their skulls. There was a flow of blood 
and blasphemy, but the difficulty was patched up by the 
steward and surgeon. A famous place for seafights is this 
part of the Caribbean which could fitly be called the Red 
Sea because of the many murderous Macbeths who have 
washed their hands in its waters. 



PASSING THE BUCCANEERS 

Across the channel lies Tortuga, Turtle Island, the 
headquarters in the seventeenth century of the Buccaneer 
Butcher Co., an organization boasting some of the most 
artistic weasand-slitters and windpipe-cutters on record. 
'Twas in this century Harvey discovered the circulation of 
the blood and Newton the law of gravitation, the buccaneers 
illustrating the flow of blood and fall of bodies by murder- 
ing man on land and sea. Tortuga is not large, being nine 
leagues long and two miles wide (it is a treasure island, too, 
where parties go in search of fabulous amounts of buried 
gold), but occupies a large place in history. It is covered 



SEASODOMS 33 

with woods and would be bare if all the rascals who had 
lived there had been buried in wood coffins. 

The buccaneer belonged to the 400 society of smugglers, 
pirates, marauders and murderers who sailed about incar- 
nadining, the seas and painting cities red with fire and blood. 
The word ''buccaneer'' means to smoke beef, as the Indians 
did, and later was applied to men who hunted hogs and cat- 
tle, then to pirates who raided Spanish holders who had a 
monopoly on heaven above and desired a corner on earth. 
The English, Dutch and French governments loved Spanish 
gold, hated the Spanish religion, and winked at the dep- 
redations of their countrymen. The buccaneers aided in 
the conquest of Jamaica and the settlement of the Bahamas. 
Henry Morgan came from Tortuga. , He was a bold, bad, 
benighted man knighted by England in reward for commit- 
ting all the crimes known to humanity. He even stole the 
booty of his own fellow pirates. He was made Lieutenant 
Governor of Jamaica. How like Europe and America today, 
since it is the men who butcher and steal who get honors 
and pelf. 

The freebooters of Tortuga made enough money to 
hire engages, white servants, paying their passage from 
France, buying them body and soul for three years, and 
rewarding them with starvation, beating, maiming and kill- 
ing. When D'Ogerau became governor of Tortuga he had 
cargoes of courtesans shipped from France who were sold 
to the buccaneers to make them feel at home. Without 
formal legal or clerical wedding ceremony they took each 
other for better or worse, with some such ceremony, the 
man saying: ''I take thee without knowing, or caring to 
know who thou art. If anybody from whence thou comest 
would have had thee thou wouldst not have come in quest 
of me. But no matter; I do not desire thee to give me an 
account of thy past conduct because I have no right to be 
offended at it at the time when thou wast at liberty to be- 
have either ill or well according to thine own pleasure and 
because I shall have no reason to be ashamed of anything 
thou wast guilty of when thou didst not belong to me. Give 
me only thy word for the future; I quit thee of the past." 
Then striking his hand on the barrel of his gun, he would 



34 SEA SODOMS 

add, 'This will revenge me of thy breach of faith ; if thou 
shouldst prove false this will surely be true to my aim." 

What a contrast between today's National City Bank 
buccaneers in their nifty, tailor-made suits, and those old 
swashbuckler sea-rovers of the seventeenth century with 
red shirts, big breeches, flaming bandanas, armed with 
pistols and knives, a string of pearls or a crucifix hanging 
from the neck, and the scarred body tattooed with the 
devil, a nude woman or a cross. They had sack to drink, 
sacked cities, and had sacks full of gold. The map shows 
several ''banks" off the Haiti coast — do they contain the 
treasure of the Spanish galleons sunk by our Tortuga 
friends? Some were brave chaps like Kidd, or big and lit- 
erary like Dampier, but their influence waned and went out 
with the century. Kingsley sings their swan-song in "The 
Last Buccaneer." 



GONAIVES AND KNAVES 

I* am familiar with the jovial countenance of St. 
Nicholas, his red nose and twinkling eyes, but not until I 
rounded the corner of the island did I know he had a "mole." 
Chris, first landed on Haiti at St. Nicholas Mole, the New 
World's Gibraltar. Later came the French, the German 
and English bringing hell with them, raising large crops 
of the same, and teaching the Haitians how to do it. In 
drear outline and barrenness the coast suggested the Holy 
Land, and fantastic were the volcanic rocks that rose up, 
leaned over or stretched out in massive shape. 

We made our advent among Gonaives' population of 
18,000 early Saturday morning, and dropped into the Advent 
church where several worshippers were reading their Bibles 
and waiting for the pastor. The city fathers believed in 
big things for their city if one may judge by the great width 
of the streets and area of the parks and squares. Yet the 
traffic of man and beast is small and the streets are filled 
with grass and dust. Perhaps they were made large so the 
blacks might have a wide and easy range to shoot each other 
during revolutions. In the sunny, treeless plaza stood a 




HAITIAN JAZZ— PORT-AU-PRINCE 




A DOMINGO TAR-BABY 



SEASODOMS 37 

huge Christ and cross with a world for a pedestal, a serpent 
crawling up from it. A block away, in sight of this cross, 
a native mother offered to sell her child and self to my 
friend from New Orleans. The city dogs and pigs have 
quite as high a moral character as some of the inhabitants. 
Flanking another desolate square is the big cathedral with 
a large house and garden adjoining. From a window in the 
house leaned two sleek, well-fed priests, the Lord's lazy- 
bones, with beards as long and bushy as the shrubs in the 
garden. It was Beggars' day. Some were at church, and 
others formed a small procession to a house hard by where 
each one received a small piece of money. The only troops 
I met with were mendicant men, women and children, 
ragged, dirty, crippled, emaciated, ulcerated — walking hos- 
pitals — a wonderful parade. They made regular rounds to 
the stores and houses picking up much small change. It is 
a poor sort of religion that impoverishes its people to en- 
rich its priests. 

A BLACK HERO 

It was from Gonaives that Toussaint L'Ouverture, 
Haiti's black hero, was taken away a prisoner to France. 
He was born near Cape Francais, Haiti, in 1743, of a slave 
father and mother. The blacks and mulattoes fought for 
their rights in 1791. After he aided his master's escape to 
Baltimore, he joined the army, became general and captured 
the white forces without bloodshed. The black leaders first 
accepted Spanish help, then England invaded the island. 
A first-class row followed and Toussaint decided against 
England and Spain in favor of the French who had pro- 
claimed freedom to their slaves. He united with the French, 
drove out the English and Spanish, and was made com- 
mander in chief of Santo Domingo. When the Civil War 
between blacks and mulattoes ceased, the entire island 
became subject to Toussaint who governed it under the 
French. He had a Council of nine, eight white citizens and 
one mulatto, which elected him president for life. A con- 
stitution was framed, adopted and sent to France. But 
the First Consul, who always consulted himself first, said, 



38 SEASODOMS 

''Toussaint is a revolted slave whom we must punish." So 
66 war vessels and 30,000 men were dispatched to Haiti to 
re-establish slavery and conquer the island. But the French 
couldn't do it. Then lying offers of peace were made, "So- 
help-me-God" promises of liberty, and Toussaint had the 
assurance of being retained as chief in power. Believing 
the French whom he had aided, he signed the peace treaty. 
It was a scrap of paper, and he was betrayed and shipped to 
France. He sent his defense to Napoleon, made appeals for 
trials, and received about as much satisfaction as Debs did 
from Wilson. 

Of this hero who styled himself the Bonaparte of Santo 
Domingo, William Godwin, English author, an acquaintance 
of Paine, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Lamb, said that the 
West Indian islands could not boast of a single name which 
deserved comparison with it since Columbus had discovered 
the West Indies. Whittier and Wordsworth sang his praises, 
and Wendell Phillips, the American agitator, liberator and 
orator, delivered a marvellous lecture on him. Feeling the 
black man's capacity, courage, humanity and possibility of 
improvement, and using the Santo Domingo insurrection as 
an illustration, he declared : ''Negro blood instead of stand- 
ing at the bottom of the list, is entitled, if judged either by 
its great men or names, by its courage, purpose or endur- 
ance, to a place as near the Anglo-Saxon as any other blood 
known in history." He made Toussaint a hero of the lec- 
ture platform and as well known as George Washington or 
John Brown. It has been said of the Louisiana Purchase that 
Toussaint, this black ex-slave, betrayed by false promises of 
Napoleon and devilishly starved in a French prison at Joux, 
did as much to help the U. S. get it as Thomas Jefferson 
or Livingstone. 

Like a Danton or Marat he fought in Santo Domingo 
for the honor and virtue of his fellows and won their inde- 
pendence in 1801. Then in 1802 ''Nap," wide awake, sent 
his idle soldiers to reinslave him. Toussaint was betrayed 
but the work went on. Providence sent the pestilence to 
help him and in a few months six-sevenths of the French 
army were dead. The Little Corporal received a big jolt, 
exclaimed, "Mon Dieu," and proceeded to do something else. 



SEASODOMS 39 

concluding if his army were beaten in tiny Santo Domingo 
he would have no chance in a war over the rich territory of 
Louisiana he had been anxious to make the Kohinur in 
his crownly possessions. So he hurried to sell to the U. S. 
what included all of the Indian territory, Kansas, Nebraska, 
Iowa, Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas, most of Colorado 
and Minnesota, and all of the Washington and Oregon 
states. Credit to whom credit is due. Our bargain purchase 
of 1803 was made possible by Toussaint who was the pre- 
cursor, the John the Baptist, preparing the way for the 
Lord of Liberty. Toussaint fought for France, drove out 
the English and Spanish, and with what reward? Betrayed, 
robbed, insulted, his wife and children arrested, he was 
placed on board the ship "La Creole" at Gonaives, then re- 
shipped on the "Heros" where the hero uttered these memor- 
able words, "By my overthrow the trunk of the tree of negro 
liberty at Santo Domingo is laid low — but only the trunk ; 
it will shoot out again from the roots, for they are many 
and deep." He was taken to Brest, weeks later to Fort Joux 
and placed in a subterranean damp cell. His wife and 
children were sent to Bayonne. He was allowed but one 
servant who later was put in chains and sent to prison at 
Nantes. Poor Toussaint! They gave him tattered rags 
for clothing, worn-out shoes, and the little food, he had to 
cook for himself. Here starved and shivered the body but 
not the soul of this great man. This and more he endured, 
unaccused of any crime and unsentenced by any court of 
justice. He was left without food or drink four days when 
Death's kind angel came to his release. April 27, 1803, 
they found Toussaint, greatest of all the black race, dead, 
sitting by the fireplace, his hands resting on his knees, and 
his head slightly bent down to the right. What black 
treachery the French were guilty of ! When Napoleon was 
banished to St. Helena, did the ghost of this black hero 
arise to haunt and accuse him? Wordsworth sang, "There's 
not a breathing of common wind that will fore-p^ ^^>iee," and 
Whittier wrote of the French mockery that knelt to pray in 
the blood of the murdered. 

As I walked the street in Gonaives bearing Toussaint's 
name, and saw the wretched souls in it, I cried, "Oh, lame 



40 SEASODOMS 

and impotent conclusion — is this the end of thy great 
struggle and sacrifice, Toussaint? When will these sons 
and daughters of thine walk in thy ways !" 

Here Dessalines issued a Declaration of Haitian Inde- 
pendence January 1, 1804, a New Year's gift. Today it 
is dead as the people buried in the cemetery and those I 
saw walking. In the market were many straw hats for sale, 
but no liberty caps — the only one Haiti possesses is on her 
coat of arms and sprouts from a palm tree. Hearing a 
piano, I looked in an open door where I saw a kind, middle- 
aged man giving his daughter music lessons. He invited me 
to enter. Selecting a classic, he turned the leaves while 
the girl played. To be a good fellow I sat down and ham- 
mered out the "Marsellaise" as if to pound the idea of free- 
dom in their heads. I took such violent physical exercise on 
the piano I rather felt he was pleased to see me leave. 

A glance in the criminal court showed a crucifix over 
the seat of justice, and looking at the benches filled with 
natives on trial, I hoped the quality of mercy would be 
strained and the dirt kept out, that these people would get a 
square deal, that rank unfairness might be seasoned with 
justice, and the judge render the deed of mercy which he 
hoped to receive. 

GOSPEL TRUTH OF ST. MARK 

Leaving Gonaives we sail by Point Diable and enter 
the harbor of St. Mark. I was familiar with St. Mark's 
Gospel and St. Mark's of Venice ; here one finds some things 
not recorded by the one or seen in the other. There was 
nothing spiritual in the odor that greeted us, nor was there 
any of that balmy fragrance mentioned by Chris, and the 
Spanish rovers who cruised along here. Green shore and 
blue bay suggested something sweet, and I wondered to 
what or whom we were indebted for the overpowering per- 
fume wafted to us. The state of Haiti's religion and politics 
is low, and the people are decadent, but it was not this — 
only the stink-laden lighters full of bilge-water that were 
coming out for freight. If the wind was to sit in that 
quarter we decided to change ours, and went ashore. 



SEASODOMS 41 

Ruskin raved over the stones of Venice and St. Mark's ; 
what would he have said of this town's church with its three 
spires, a part of the roof gone, and the seats and aisles cush- 
ioned and carpeted with debris ? The beams overhead were 
sun-beams falling through the ragged rafters, and the few 
worshipper's were equally dilapidated. Neglect was the min- 
ister and Disorder the sexton. It had been in this condition 
for months. Whether the natives are too poor to repair it or 
monej^ has been diverted for other objects, or there is a re- 
serve fund, I don't know — or care. 

Half-naked women and children were washing them- 
selves and clothes in a small stream. These negro naiads 
were unattractive in face and figure, crooked and long- 
shanked, and would have furnished excellent caricature 
studies for a Cruikshank. Unlike Phryne, were they to be 
brought up before a judge, their only chance of getting off 
would be to put their clothes on. Like the stream I 
meandered on till stopped by two black wenches, with flour- 
powdered faces, who bombarded me with patois questions. 
I could only understand their actions, and left. 

The Saturday market draws crowds as treacle does 
flies. Sans roof or shade trees, all broiling in the sun, were 
the blacks in white with their babel of tongues. They en- 
joyed it — I felt like the Atarantes in the desert who cursed 
the sun as it passed over their heads, uttering the foulest 
invectives. The plain was full of plain women whom I 
forsook for a shady street and a large ice-box filled with Hol- 
land beer. The per cent of alcohol I have forgotten, but not 
the taste. David could not forget Jerusalem and I will not 
soon forget the joy with which I departed from St. Mark. 

PESTILENTIAL PORT-AU-PRINCE 

Sunday morning ushered us into the harbor of Port- 
au-Prince. American influence and supervision were not 
only seen in the airplanes humming above us, but in the 
restrictions and offensive attitude of the U. S. soldiers con- 
trolling the wharf. Our colored crew was forbidden shore 
leave, not on account of smallpox in the city, as was al- 
leged, but because on a former trip they had made some re- 



42 SEA SODOMS 

marks on the marine occupation, which terminated in a 
fight to the blacks' disadvantage. It appears our soldiers are 
without feeling in their brutal treatment of others, though 
touchily sensitive when their record is referred to. On 
shipboard I met some army officers, talked with them and 
overheard their remarks to others. One had cleaned out 
a prison and another had cleaned up a "caco." They were 
gentlemanly and kind, gave me their side and strongly re- 
sented the criticisms which had appeared in the U. S. press. 
Ashore they endeavored to arrange where I should stay, 
whom I should see and what I should do. I sincerely thanked 
them, preferring to look through my own eyes. Later one 
of them asked the purser who I was, why I came to 
Haiti, what my game was. You see, business was poor in 
the island, few tourists come, and as for writers, investigat- 
ing committees and naval boards of inquiry, their minds 
and memoranda are made up before they even buy a ticket 
for Haiti. The prodigal sun was having a hot time here, 
and when I remarked that Hell had nothing on Haiti for 
heat, a shoulder-strap soldier overhearing me said, "One 
should not be prejudiced but come here with an open mind." 
The fact was, my mind as well as my pores had cracked 
open with the heat. This incident taught me, however, to 
keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut until I got 
out of the country. 

After the ship had been made fast we were tied up 
with red-tape before our landing certificates were vised. 
Alas, too many ports in this latitude are not worth the time, 
money and energy required to land. Although our white 
crew had been denied shore leave, one of them went off 
with us disguised as a passenger, carrying a basket on 
his arm. Basket-carrying is a strange custom in these 
islands. People returning to ship always come back with 
one, a curio basket, and the curious thing about it is that it 
isn't filled with fruit or flowers, except on top, for hidden 
beneath are rum, cognac, whiskey, absintha and any other 
devil firewater drink obtainable. 

Port-au-Prince streets, instead of being knee-deep in 
muck, are macadamized. A dubious blessing, for they 
radiate and reflect the glare and heat of the sun, unen- 



SEASODOMS 43 

durable except to a fiend or a Haitian. One wears little 
although he is "clothed with cursing as a garment." Street 
gamin were gambling with pieces of orange-peel for dice. 
At night you must watch your step, or you may step off 
suddenly from the walks into open sewers, making a vanish- 
ing act creditable to a magician. The daughters singing at 
the well of Jerusalem made no more ado than the jabbering 
Haitian girls who jab one another with their tin cans while 
trying to get piped water from the public fountain. 

The main plaza in front of the Cathedral is treeless and 
has all the landscape beauty of a city dump. Piously I toiled 
up to the big new Cathedral facing this ''park." One climbs 
a stone staircase to a terrace where the church stands. 
There were flies enough to please Domitian, and a stench 
that would make a skunk feel at home. ''The wicked stand 
in slippery places," and believe it or not, this perfume 
emanated from this Scala Sancta where natives defecate 
at night, and up which devout souls climb by day to the 
House of the Lord, of which the Psalmist asks, "Who shall 
ascend into the hill of the Lord, or shall stand in his holy 
place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." Here 
you see one of the "fundamentals" of religion. With such 
an odor of sanctity, I was not surprised to find a funeral 
here in the afternoon. 

In this fly-buzzing, buzzard atmosphere we saw many 
of the poor taking their siestas, lying prone in the street. 
Next to the new Cathedral was the old one, and of more 
interest to me because associated with the political and 
religious history of the city. If I am not mistaken, it was 
here a casket containing the remains of a ruler lying in 
state was riddled with bullets. 

Port-au-Prince's orthodox Sunday program is to go to 
the Cathedral in the morning, to lunch and munch, about 
noon, on chicken which you have served 366 days of the 
year, then to the cockfight. We were orthodox firstly, sec- 
ondly and proceeded to thirdly. The way through a farm 
hen-roost was clean compared with the road leading to the 
cockpit. This part of the city is an eye-sore. Why were 
quakes, fires, fevers and fights so charitable as to leave it? 
Passing many dozing natives in doorway and street we ar- 



44 SEASODOMS 

rived at the pit, and it was pitiful to see that many of the 
spectators' faces were yellow as bile and pitted like a thimble 
with smallpox. The game birds were not the roosters but 
men. The cocks fought without spurs, being spurred on 
by the crowd. There was the usual betting on the birds, 
fight and confusion. The people were poor, like the fight, 
and there was little exchange of money. The annals of 
the poor are simple-minded ones. 

Our cooking itinerary included the *'Gut," through 
which we passed, a section of the city near the water-front 
fittingly named for the refuse of humanity. It was offaly 
awful and awfully offal — a place where Heat, Stink, Disease 
and Dirt were the local genii, a little hell by itself, not even 
paved with good intentions. To people living here any- 
thing after death would be a relief. Rambling through 
ardent streets and lanes, we heard a tom-tom, and being 
inquisitive went over to where two women in a back yard 
were going through some sort of voodoo vertiginous oscilla- 
tion. They stopped at our applause, but money set their 
muscles going again, and they only ceased when the money 
did. I was pleased to leave this carrion quarter of Port-au- 
Prince to visit the prison, an Elysium in comparison. Two 
classes were represented, criminal and insane, which in the 
minds of some penologists are one and the same. A semi- 
nude female minced up to me with a handful of garbage, 
offering it as fine fruit. An ape-like old lady sat stark and 
staring crouched against the wall under a sort of shower- 
bath. The hospital made dying easy. The best looking 
woman I saw in Haiti was here. A number of girls whose 
love of exercise makes them streeet- walkers, are "kept" here 
for a month or so and put to other work. The male de- 
partment was composed of murderers, thieves, bandits, 
voodooers and doers of all sorts of crimes. They were 
seated under trees and walls, meditating, probably, dark 
deeds when they got out. I spoke to two men who com- 
plained of lack of food, but there was plenty for reflection. 

The finest horses in Port-au-Prince are in the Carousel 
which take you merrily around, all others are starved, lame 
steeds that should land the man who drove or hired them 
in jail. I got in one rig and then got out to hold the horse 



SEASODOMS 45 

up in the shafts, and managed to push this livery up the 
hill past the palatial residences of the coffee and cane- 
planters to the Mountain House, where I drank in a fine 
view of harbor, hills and sunset, while imbibing something 
else. An American naval officer stationed here told me of a 
wild orgy that took place a few days before in which a high 
American officer was killed through the jealousy of that 
ancient cause — a woman. "Shoot if you must," is the motto 
of black or white. That's what our soldiers are here for. 
Mr. Shay, the proprietor of the hotel, had recently died. 
He was an historic character in Haitian history. Through 
a mutual friend I had a talk and visit with tne family. 

MORAL RELAXATIONS 

The Champ de Mars is a large cow-pasture where the 
band bellowed music at night. Negroes promenaded in the 
dark, autos honked and the hurdy-gurdy sound of the Car- 
ousel happily drowned out the noise of the band. Outside 
the park we were held up, not by highwaymen, but by two 
low women who desired to relieve us of money and virtue. 
They spoke English, said they were from Jamaica, and they 
were full of something besides ginger. This sort of society 
is typically West Indian. I took refuge in a drink parlor 
full of sailors playing cards. They asked me to join them 
but I preferred to play on the piano. 

The original inhabitants of the island spent an unor- 
iginal, happy, pastoral life in drinking, dancing, debauch- 
ing and practising polygamy. Today the whites, instead of 
practising it, are finished artists. When it came to the old 
Spaniards the S in their name stood for sensuality. Ruth- 
less rape and devilish debauchery were the cardinal points 
of their carnal sin. Chris.' followers — knights of Columbus 
and of the road — brought back from Haiti to Italy, among 
other things, a venereal disease which even today is known 
as the Neapolitan disease. The French succeeded the 
Spanish and even exceeded them, if possible, in excess. Their 
relaxations were very lax. When the planter was not tor- 
turing the male slave, he was promiscuously seducing his 
female slaves and servants. Marriage was not popular. 



46 SEASODOMS 

and when he did have a legitimate wife, who saw her hus- 
band's infidelity, her jealous fury showed itself in beating or 
poisoning his mistresses, his family and slaves, or killing 
him. In 1685, Louis XIV published a Code Noire, an article 
of which was that a white was to be fined 2,000 pounds in 
sugar who had children by his slaves. If a white debauched 
his slave the woman and children were to be sold for the 
benefit of the hospital and could not be repurchased. 

Many of Haiti's national heroes were but humanized 
goats. Dessalines had concubines in every city who could 
draw on the public treasury to meet their extravagances. 
Salnave was a knave who made the palace a roadhouse re- 
sort of wildest and wickedest women. The reverend rakes 
who came here from Europe were more immoral than ihe 
natives. They came from the continent to be incontinent, 
and had the asceticism of a satyr. 

Voodoo temple service, like religious worship in old 
heathen temples, became a shrine of sodden sin. What a 
philosopher said of ancient beliefs applies here, ''they were 
an unchecked development of physical pleasure." Haitians 
don't believe in that excellent copy-book maxim, ''Virtue 
is its own reward." Laziness, as well as tropic heat, ac- 
counts for much of this licentiousness, as well (or ill) as 
the immodest mothers who recount amours before their 
young daughters. On your way from the city to the ship 
you are followed and importuned by impish girls, from 
8 to 10 years old, who solicit to Sodom sins. Rome had 
altars for every sin — here they have all sins but are too 
poqr to build the altars. Little boys are runners for their 
sisters, and all kinds of abominable iniquities are openly 
committed in dark streets. In country festivals natives per- 
form, dances on the roads about phallus images they hav^' 
made, recalling the pagan phallus processions of Egypt in 
honor of the festival of Bacchus. I talked with Haitians, 
Syrians, French, Americans and Englishmen who had lived 
here for years, and their verdict was a paraphrase of Wal- 
pole's words, "Every woman had a price." The Haitian 
ladies are not hypocritical, their vice is open^ — they do hpt 
lock their house or wear a padlock on their waist like that 
woman pictured by the Spanish artist, Goya, in one of his 



SEASODOMS 47 

''Caprichos." An old maxim reads that a lion will never 
hurt a virtuous v^oman ; you can't apply the test, for there 
are no lions here — if there v^ere, there v^ould be but fev^ 
women, and the consequences would be as dire as those de- 
scribed in Swift's satiric dream in the Tatler. Haitian 
women are very religious, and, at the same time, faithless. 
Their ideas of fidelity are little better than those of the lean 
pigs running about the streets. Dancing and drinking are 
not the only reasons why the drink and dance halls are 
frequented. Port-au-Prince is a city of dreadful day and 
night. On our way to the ship a cloud-burst of rain fell as 
if to baptize the town and people, but it will take more than 
water to clean this cesspool city. 



A BAD OCCUPATION 

It would seem that all Haiti needs to make it a fine 
country is a garbage-incinerator, plumbing, baths, clean 
kitchens, education, morality, monogamy, health, money, 
peace, an anti-cruelty society, clothes, roads, honest courts, 
etc. Haiti is before the world but behind the times. The 
spell of misrule in Haiti makes h-e-1-1 the way to spell it. 
Her most refined pleasures are cock-fights, booze and orgi- 
astic dances. There is plenty of witchcraft but little state- 
craft. Worse than the witch-doctors are the political medi- 
ums and mumbo-j umbos sent here from the U. S. Haiti is 
called the ''black republic," yet the whites have made it 
blacker than it was in body, mind and soul. We tell the 
natives not to lie, steal, kill or torture, yet deliberately do 
all these things here. Haiti hates U. S. The last few 
years Uncle Sam has extended a black hand, not a helping 
one, and has exerted a malign and not a benign rule. 

It is said an American down here remarked that if he 
knew how to draw% he would represent the occupation by a 
black man held down by a white soldier, while another white 
man went through the black man's pockets. Another officer, 
who happened to be a man as well as soldier, said our "ad- 
venture" was a disgrace to the U. S. marine corps and a 
travesty on civilization and humanity. 

Five years of violent, vicious misrule in Haiti, with the 



48 SEASODOMS 

law of might instead of right, have put the U. S. in the un- 
enviable light of England to India and Egypt, Belgium to 
the Congo, and Germany to Belgium. The book of Ameri- 
can imperialism, according to a man who was on the ground 
from the first, is divided into five chapters : " (1) Invasion 
of a weaker nation on behalf of investors accompanied by 
explanation that the invasion is for the purpose of 'restor- 
ing order.' (2) Enforcement of a treaty or agreement 
ceding control of the weaker nation's finance to the strong- 
er, the treaty convention being ratified by a farce of an 
election presided over by invading soldiers. (3) Mass mur- 
der of those of the population who resist, the revolutionists 
being called 'bandits.' (4) Atrocities. (5) Rigid censor- 
ship." In regard to this last point no Haitian paper was 
permitted to say anything in criticism of the Haitian gov- 
ernment or our occupation. If the editor wanted to change 
his printing sanctum for a prison cell, all he had to do was 
to print the truth about what was going on. As for 
atrocities, the blame is not so much on the murderous mar- 
ines as the "nigger-hating" politicians in the U. S. who 
sent "nigger-hating" marines here, recruited from the 
South. 

Under the Monroe Doctrine we are supposed to protect 
these islands from foreign aggression, and under this same 
doctrine we have practised the tyrannies we were pretend- 
ing to fight against. America was horrified in 1914 when 
the Imperial German government justified its invasion of 
Belgium as a military necessity. In 1915, with the same ex- 
cuse, we invaded Haiti because we said some stronger power 
might use it as a base of naval action against the Panama 
Canal or the U. S. The word "republic" applied to Haiti 
is pure fiction when we control politics, suppress newspapers 
and officer their gendarmeries. 

In Wilson's dictionary, not Webster's, the words "de- 
velopment" and "thuggery" are synonymous. It is a mat- 
ter of record that a commanding officer was sent to Haiti 
although he had been courtmartialed for brutality to natives 
in the Philippines. 

The machine-guns of the marines and the "canons" 
of big business show a happy result in the defeat of the 



SEASODOMS 49 

islanders. Already the Haitian bank is owned by Ameri- 
cans, as are the national railways, the lighting plants and 
the sugar-mills. I came down with Americans who are try- 
ing to purchase the best land in the country. 

Haiti was the paradise for Democratic office-seekers 
from the South. The head of the Customs Service was 
clerk of a Louisiana parish, and another deputy-collector 
was from Mississippi. The superintendent of Public In- 
struction was a school-teacher in Louisiana, whose schools 
for white children are a disgrace. From this same sweet 
state came Haiti's financial adviser, Mr. Mcllhenny, and 
how could any "Mc" be ''any" good. Good Lord! when it 
comes to occupation officers who have taken their wives and 
families to Haiti, what may you expect — just what you find. 
The people who lived at home in ordinary circumstances 
now occupy beautiful villas, and women who couldn't afford 
to keep a hired girl in the U. S. A. have half a dozen now 
whom they boss around. At home they couldn't afford a 
Ford, and here every Department head has a fine automobile 
furnished at Haitian government expense, while the mem- 
bers of the Haitian Cabinet, who are not only theoretically 
but practically above them in many ways, can hoof it or 
stay home. 

Our school teacher superintendent of instruction from 
Louisiana has an auto furnished at government expense, 
and his superior officer, the Haitian minister of Public 
Instruction, has none. When the Haitian President, Mr. 
Dartiguenave, wanted to make an official trip through the 
interior, he had to beg and borrow an auto from the occu- 
pation. But he has other things to feel sore about. He 
says: 

That the American financial adviser to Haiti attempted 
to coup with Haitian funds that cost Haiti millions. 

That earnest projects having to do with the welfare of 
his people, and devised by him and his counsellors, are re- 
jected by the occupation without examination or explana- 
tion, owing to Mr. Mcllhenny's inertia. 

That vital proposals are buried in the archives of the 
American legation of Port-au-Prince. 



50 SEASODOMS 

That the civil functionaries of the American occupa- 
tion made no response to the aspirations of the government 
to undertake measures for primary, secondary and higher 
education. 

That Haiti has been made to pay the salaries ($250 a 
month) of two rat catchers assigned to New Orleans, but 
that it cannot obtain funds to pay the expenses of three pro- 
fessors which France has offered to lend to Haiti. 

That, although it was solemnly promised in the treaty 
conventions of 1915, Haiti has received from the Ameri- 
can occupation no effective aid in agriculture or industrial 
development, or toward the creation of financial solidarity. 

That Haiti is paying $10,000 a year to an American 
''financial adviser," who has turned autocrat. 

That the promised new system of public accounting 
has never been devised by the American officials, with the 
result that Haiti is not able to count its own money. 

That he, Dartiguenave, has been asking and waiting 
for 20 months for improved fiscal measures the occupation 
promised but has never delivered. 

That an American autocracy exists in the guise of 
advice and receivership. 

That Washington is too badly informed about Haiti 
and too much interested in other questions of foreign policy 
to pay much attention to Haiti. 

That bitter humiliations have been and are being en- 
dured, and 

That the American civil administration of Haiti is 
more oppressive than the military administration. 

A recent protest to Washington has been received from 
Haiti. ''The Haitian people feel," says the memorial, "that 
if the naval court of inquiry has not fulfilled in Haiti the 
broad mandate conferred upon it by Mr. Josephus Daniels, 
it is because it was faced with charges of such a horrible na- 
ture that it thought best to pass them over in silence." 

Among the acts charged against the American occupa- 
tion of Haiti are : 

Administration of the "water cure" and other tortures 
by American officers and Marines and the commission of 



SEASODOMS 51 

''numberless abominable crimes," of which 25 cases, with 
names and dates, are given in the memorial. 

Removal of $500,000 of Haitian government funds 
which American marines carried off "and took on board the 
gunboat Machias," and which were deposited in a New 
York bank to ''force the Haitian government to accept con- 
trol of the custom houses by systematically depriving it of 
financial resources." 

Entrance by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler on 
June 19, 1917, revolver in hand, followed by American 
officers armed with their revolvers, into the Haitian legisla- 
tive chamber, and dissolution by force of the Haitian legis- 
lative assembly. 

Enforced ratification on June 12, 1918, of a new Haitian 
constitution, with Marines presiding at the ballot box, only 
ballots bearing the word "yes" being issued. 

Death of 400 prisoners in Cape Haitien, and of 5,475 
prisoners at Chabert, an American camp, in the three years, 
1918-1920. 

Exclusion from the naval court of inquiry of "all 
Haitians who had anything to say regarding the numerous 
cases of murder, brutality, rape, arson, that is, of Haitians 
who wished to convince the court of inquiry of the way in 
which the forces of the occupation had carried out their 
duty in Haiti." 

After the ratification- of the treaty, it is charged that 
"there is not a branch of public service in Haiti which has 
not had to submit at one time or another to illegal interfer- 
ence, often brutal, either by the gendarmerie laying down 
the law to the government, or by the military occupation, 
the absolute master of the situation." 

The naval investigation ordered by Secretary Daniels 
is characterized as a "joke" and Admiral Knapp is accused 
of having done "nothing at all" when ordered to investi- 
gate, 

Such is the Haitian's impeachment of Uncle Sam. Evi- 
dently, it is not always true that the further you get from 
Washington the nearer you are to honesty. 

I found Haiti was not "cleaned up," for filth, squalor 
and fever abound. Roads are bad but inroads of diseaise 



52 SEA SODOMS 

are good, 87 per cent of the people being infected with one 
thing or another, often both. Voodoo superstition is ram- 
pant and morality unknown. The mountains are clothed 
with forests and the people with rags. The laborer makes 
the princely wages of a gourd (20c) a day — not much more 
than the blacks receive in the sugar-cane fields of the Brit- 
ish West Indies. Schools are mean and miserable — some 
teachers in the rural district receive only $6 a month. The 
bottom has dropped out of the island's market basket and 
coffee, cocoa and sugar have fallen low. Mountains are 
high but debts are higher. Yet prospects are brightening 
— for the American grafter, who will make the old viceroy 
of the Spanish king, who received $30,000,000 in a single 
year, look like a piker. 

The Haitian is ignorant, unhappy, constitutionally 
lazy and would like to cut the throat of every white man on 
the island. His political temperature equals the thermome- 
ter's, and daily plots are hatched to overthrow the presi- 
dent. Acrostically speaking, Haiti stands for what is Hope- 
less, Aimless, Illiterate, Tragic, Illegitimate. The donkeys 
are the most intelligent dwellers in the island. The Ameri- 
can eagle to the Haitian is a vulture, and he hopes the U. S. 
occupation, like Othello's, will soon be "gone." 

WOEBEGONE MIRAGOANE 

After my pleasant sojourn in Port-au-Prince, the "Al- 
lianca" took me to Miragoane, a woebegone little town 
perched on a hill. After anchoring we were rowed in a small 
boat to the regular landing place where the town sewage 
flowed and settled. This debris and dump were symbolic. 
Our guide was a genial young Southerner, clad in Uncle 
Sam's suit with belt and gun. He led us to his barracks 
with a fine view of sea. I gave him a book of stories and 
some papers, for his duties are monotonous — bossing the 
toy town, smoking cigarets, and shooting at fish and peli- 
cans in the harbor. Back of the church-crowned hill is 
a large shrine with cross, Christ and sacred figures, and 
near this a populous cemetery, the result of a plague some 
years ago. The "city" is picturesque with its hills and har- 



SEASODOMS 53 

bor, the only disagreeable features being those of the people 
who exist here and the houses they exist in. The people are 
very poor, and I might have known it from the size of the 
Cathedral. Conveniently near it is the jail, so lapsed com- 
municants may still hear the service. Slippery and rocky is 
the descent into this prison. The walls are whitewashed, 
the occupants black — whether washed I do not know. A 
big tree in the courtyard would make a fine gallows, if 
needed, and so prove elevating to one at least. I photoed 
25 of the misleading citizens, and told them to ''look pleas- 
ant" — as possible under the circumstances of an American 
snapping them. 

Outside I took another picture of a religious school. 
The children were on the porch — whether learning to be 
porch-climbers or pupils of Zeno, the porch philosopher of 
Athens, I leave to the discerning reader. Here I became a 
disciple of another Greek school of philosophy, the Peri- 
patetic of Aristotle who taught his disciples walking, and 
-I went off for a ramble. I met a poor girl on a donkey, and 
remembered Horace's words about "atra cura" (black care) 
jumping on behind when I saw a little black imp climbing 
on back of her. The sewers, like the church and school, 
were open. The plaza band-stand was without musicians 
but I listened to a band of prison laborers singing, each 
keeping time by swinging a sort of handpile-driver as they 
fixed the road. Log- wood was piled on the beach, a valuable 
"dye" wood suggesting the woods nearby where prisoners 
of old were shot. Coffee and cabinet woods are other ex- 
ports. 

My warrior guide was friendly though he looked quite 
fierce with his gun and belt full of cartridges. He went 
out to the ship with us and began shooting sharks from the 
deck, which made the captain nervous and he was told to 
refrain. When he went down the gang and entered 
his own little craft, he began popping away again. The 
captain laughed and said he was a big soldier boy who could 
boss the blacks ashore, but that he was boss of this ship. 
Leaving the frowsy, drowsy, tiny town to dream its happy 
hours away, we sailed off into the sunset. 



54 SEASODOMS 

JEREMIE AND DUMAS 

Jeremie is near the northwest tip of the Tibournon 
peninsula, and known for export of sugar and coffee, when 
business isn't dull. In the morning the peaks looked as if 
they had been on a jag, for their heads were bandaged with 
clouds. On entering the harbor we were in danger, through 
wind and current, of casting anchor at the wrong point, 
greatly exciting the native pilot who came out and waved 
and wigwagged to our captain the place we were to let go. 
Queer, you stop the ship and let the anchor go. After ob- 
taining a health permit from the doctor, we went ashore in 
the agent's boat to this town where the 400 select souls of 
Haiti reside. 

After a weary walk through business and residential 
sections we were glad to rest, where all must rest sooner or 
later, in the cemetery. There was many a beautiful monu- 
ment for the dead — I know they must appreciate them — 
but the best one was for the living, a high green hill in the 
background. Close by stood a Protestant mission school 
with a few children playing in the door. An old-time, worm- 
eaten piano within grinned at me with its yellow and black 
keys. 1 

The city court was empty, his honor was out, and the 
dishonored were in jail. The judge's comic cap and opera 
costume were hanging from the wall, a black cloak lined 
with red, in which to act his travesty bn justice, the colors 
being indicative of the bloody history of the blacks in Haiti. 
Of course, Jeremie has a Cathedral where, in the words of 
Michael Angelo, 'The blood of Christ is sold so much the 
quart," and a market where I was offered everything I 
didn't need. I was surprised, though, to find the sign of an 
American dentist whose office was as modern as any in his 
Philadelphia home. He showed me a R. C. school where a 
young priest was teaching a class, and the Protestant church 
where he worshiped. An old janitor opened the building, 
ushered me into the pulpit, gave me the French Bible, and 
urged me to read. I read the 23rd Psalm. There were only 
three present, who apparently were very much pleased — at 
my French accent. I hope the Father in heaven under- 



SEA SODOMS 55 

stood me even if his children on earth didn't. My dental 
pilot then conducted me down town to a store where dwelt 
three weird sister members of this church. He acted as in- 
terpreter, and just when we were getting up a good conver- 
sation the boat whistled and we bade them a hasty au revoir. 
"Come'' and "go" are the two words in a traveller's vocabu- 
lary. When on ship you want to go on shore, and when on 
shore you want to go back on the ship. The torpor of the 
town had been recently roused by the cry of "fire." Fire 
burns a wood house here as easily as in Tokyo, and a sec- 
tion of the city had been destroyed. 

Jeremie has the honor of being regarded as the sup- 
posed birthplace of the great Alexander Duma's father, a 
dashing Creole general who was the illegitimate son of 
Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie, and Louise Dumas, a black 
woman of Santo Domingo. Had this island done nothing 
but produce the geneological tree which bore the literary 
fruit of Dumas and scattered his literary leaves all over the 
earth, it would have achieved immortality. 

It is not to be wondered at that descending from an- 
cestors whose island was overrun by pirates, Dumas had 
a penchant for literary plundering. He stole from Schiller 
and many others, excusing himself by saying, "All human 
phenomena are public property. The man of genius does 
not steal, he only conquers. Everyone arrives at his turn 
and in his hour seizes what his ancestors have left, and puts 
it into new shapes and combinations." Dumas employed 
an army of scribbling Don Quixotes to storm the heights 
of Parnassus for him. In the year 1844, he issued 40 vol- 
umes. The works bearing his name number 1200, and 60 
dramas are attributed to him. "Monte Cristo" is in the 
class of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Waverly." In "Three 
Musketeers" he fired a shot heard round the world. He 
was a jovial genius, full of life, wit, brilliancy and industry. 
The literary world credits him with narrative that is in- 
genious and morality that is genial. No Ladies' Seminary, 
scientist's laboratory, or clergyman's library should be with- 
out him. 



56 SEASODOMS 

AWFUL AUX CAYES 

The country betwixt Jeremie and Aux Cayes is very 
rich in possibilities and beautiful in scenery. Passing the 
He de Vache the ''Allianca" anchored opposite the town of 
Aux Cayes asleep in the arms of the shore. It has the 
usual exports of coffee, sugar and dye-wood, and the fame 
and flavor of its rum had reached us far at sea. The port is 
locked by many keys, and it is hard to find the right one to 
get in, as evidenced by the wrecks outside. I saw one 
wrecked bark whose crew is said to have gone crazy with 
fever, striking the reef here one night — a bad "wreck"oning. 
They had started from South Africa for New Orleans. The 
crew was saved and the cargo sold — after the natives had 
first helped themselves. The great liberator, Bolivar, was 
more successful, for he landed, and secured food and arms 
from the Haitian government to aid him in his fight against 
the Spanish for liberty in Venezuela. The person unfortu- 
nate enough to come here today gets smallpox, yaws, 
malarial fever, elephantiasis, syphilis, and other agreeable 
ailments. 

As a fleet of lighters poled out to the **Allianca," we 
pulled for shore and were met by the usual American mili- 
tary officer with his gun sign of authority. Like every 
decent soldier who ever served, he was bigger and better 
than his profession. He was kind, offered to make it pleas- 
ant for us, taking us first to his quarters where he received 
a hurry-up 'phone message, from one of his aides 30 miles 
away, that there had been a social gathering of rioters the 
night before who had discussed the weather, and whether 
they ought not to overthrow the Haiti president. Many 
Haitians think their ruler a marionette tied with political 
strings to Washington, and they would love to cut the strings 
and the throats of those who manipulate them. Upstairs 
were several disabled men of war worsted in their attack on 
some houses of ill-fame where Venus had sent them away 
sorely repulsed. 

Aux Cayes was without water supply, it was tres chaud, 
but there was plenty of liquid refreshment at the hotel 
where many stay and few sleep. This sounds quite trivial, 



SEASODOMS 57 

but chronicling small-beer is the main business of life, ac- 
cording to Thackeray — if you don't care for what I have 
on tap, brew your own in your own home town. Strolling 
through streets where coffee was piled up like revolution- 
ary barricades or sewer excavations, I met natives swarm- 
ing in from the country districts, dressed in their best, and 
bringing their children. Where were they going? Was it 
a fete day? Yes, of Saint Vaccine, for the Occident unites 
with the Orient in venerating the sacred emanations of a 
cow. 

The temple w^here the ceremonies took place was in the 
yard and patio of a church institution, and French sisters 
and an American Masonic doctor were initiating the victims 
who filled the benches and standing room under the. trees. 
When they crowded out of turn the sisters of ''mercy" took 
whips, lashed them over the back, arms, neck and face, and 
they were ''cowed" before receiving the cow-juice. I had 
been vaccinated before and thought it wouldn't hurt to be 
again, but it did, alas, as I learned to my arm's sorrow. The 
vaccination was by command of the military occupation 
which insisted every one should be vaccinated to avoid the 
spread of the pestilence. 

The Haitian proverb reads, "If you see a bridge, go 
around it." That depends where and what it is. The 
Colonel took us across one in his car in safety. At one end 
of it we passed a poor victim of elephantiasis who was 
taking toll on human charity. Beneath us was the ever- 
present river-laundry exhibit of white wet clothes and 
black legs, arms and breasts. From this animated bust pic- 
ture we turned off to one of native "still" life where the pro- 
prietor was making tafia rum. He was careful to show and 
explain all as though we had come to buy the plant. Aux 
Cayes roads are as rough as the life the people lead who 
travel them. We became rough-riders, bumping by rough.- 
looking houses and people, and hurricane-wrecked buildings, 
for this end of the island is famed for its blow-outs. The 
destroyed Masonic temple had not been rebuilt, but the sign 
of the square and compass remained, and what that stands 
for in Masonry can never be destroyed, for it is in the heart 
of the Creator Mason, the great Architect, God. On the 



58 SEASODOMS 

ground walk in front of the ruin were many pancake-shaped 
pieces of wax that were being dried out to make into candles 
for the R. C. Cathedral hard by. ''Light" is the great thing 
in Masonry, and we are always glad to spread it in Roman 
Catholic countries. 

The church is a favorite resort. The Father told our 
guide Ms flock was hard to lead — it came to him for the 
privilege of committing outrageous sin and crime not 
classed in the permitted indulgences. Good costs an effort 
in Haiti, evil is spontaneous. In Tetzel's time there was 
no indulgence restriction. He was the general Dominican 
preacher of indulgences to whom Martin Luther made some 
mild objections in 1517 in his Wittenberg theses. The 
spirit of this indulgent habit was formed among Protestants 
during the late war when they indulged the hope God would 
answer their prayers and permit them to ravage, rape and 
ruin their enemies. Here you see a costly shrine with ex- 
pensive, unartistic, grand double stairway leading to a 
platform with life-size statues, back of which towers a cross 
and Christ. In the shed tower was a large new bell weigh- 
ing many tons and costing barrels of money. The church 
fathers, of respectable age and corpulence, have a palatial 
mansion on the plaza. You see, the Roman church believes 
in the kingdoms of this world. However, a good shepherd 
should shear his flock, not skin them. In sharp contrast 
was the small public school in a miserable little room back 
of a store, where half a dozen children were sitting in the 
dark on some rickety benches, and trying to learn God 
knows what. Here children, as in the old Bible days, "per- 
ish without knowledge." 97 per cent of Haiti's population 
is illiterate. The U. S. occupation of five years has done 
little except raise the salaries of the Roman Catholic teach- 
ers in church schools, and nothing at all for government 
schools, such as they are. But our republic has other 
cares than the encouragement of education. Our press, 
just before election, said much of Haiti, but nothing of its 
religious and educational conditions. Why silent? Because 
it reflects on the Roman Church. The divine Head of the 
church said, "By their fruits ye shall know them," and we 
know that ignorance prevails in the teaching and practise 



SEASODOMS 59 

of this church which considers its own privileges superior 
to the interests of humanity — its ease and income to the 
good of people — whose priests are always in the right — 
that places all ideas of liberty on the Index Expurgatorius — 
consecrates inequality — significantly places a dome over its 
edifices as it does a light-extinguisher on the brains of its 
children — and strangles the human race to send it the 
sooner to Paradise. 

The Aux Cayes gaol has few foreign visitors and is not 
a show place like the one at Cape Haitien or Port-au-Prince ; 
nor do investigating committees get down this far. The 
colonel was ashamed of it but did the best and most he 
could with the money given him. It is difficult to imagine 
a worse hole in the delightful days of Christophe. I chris- 
tened it the "Pestilentiary." Men and women were crowded 
like cattle in pens, and walked and slept on rough boards. 
As at Port-au-Prince, the insane were herded with the 
criminals. I kodaked a mad woman, and a man introduced 
to me as the "Son of God." There were girls, rounded up 
from the streets, in the last stages of syphilis, and only 12 
and 15 years old. Upstairs in the hospital one woman lay 
a mass of putrefaction, and a man was dying without 
necessary care. 

If the end of your existence is to eat four good meals a 
day, I would not advise you to stay long in this town. Never- 
theless, we found a cafe and ordered the best meal it could 
put up for us to put down. The food was imported bottled 
and canned goods from the U. S. We were so hungry and 
busy there was little time to scan the legs of the black girl 
waitress, or study the sad, sweet face of the Swiss landlady 
whose husband had deserted her to make enough money 
to stay in Cuba and run a gambling establishment. 

I noticed a number of blacks having their photos taken 
for passports to Cuba, where in the sugar-cane fields they 
receive better wages and treatment. After hard sight-see- 
ing we made final report at government headquarters and 
listened to some victrola jazz, while one of the soldier at- 
tendants sat in a chair giving a shimmy accompaniment 
with his malaria fever and chills. Ye gods, it's a shame 
to send any decent, healthy white man down here. The 



60 SEASODOMS 

only difference between Haiti and hell is in the spelling. 
The colonel went aboard with us to get some real food for 
his family — the steamer's advent, with a little fresh meat, 
being as welcome an event as the manna to the Israelites 
in the wilderness. We said ''Adieu," and steward King 
gave him the meat with a "God be with you till we meet 
again." 

JACMEL JOTTINGS 

That evening we lay out in the harbor of Jacmel. Hast 
thou ever been to Jacmel, or, as it is sometimes spelled, 
Jacquemel? You may put more letters in the name, but it 
won't make the town any larger. Encyclopaedias say boats 
anchor half a mile off from this place — take the cue, that's 
as near as the town is worth visiting. It is possible to live 
and die happy without going ashore. Jacmel lies 30 miles 
southwest of Port-au-Prince, and the 8,000 doomed to live 
within its limits export coffee, cotton, cotton-seed and log- 
wood. True, you can learn all this without setting foot on 
land, but for fear some commercial traveler will think I 
don't know what I'm writing about, I'll say I went ashore. 

It is terrible to travel without imagination — the guide- 
books load you up with everything else. By the light of the 
horned moon, Jacmel and its encircling hills would make a 
fine inferno setting, or stage for a voodoo orgy. 'Twas so 
weird, thrilling and creepy that for one whole minute my 
attention was diverted from the bar-room stories told on 
deck of the ''Allianca." 

Before the sun rose upon the matutinal dews we were 
awakened by a lighter-fleet of vociferous vagabonds, who 
paddled and pushed, jabbered and gesticulated, screeched 
and scrambled, fought and frothed to get the first and best 
position for loading. A movie of this would be worth a mil- 
lion, if with it you included the three naked men ashore who 
were giving a horse a bath, and pausing occasionally to say 
**bon jour" to the jeune filles going to market. 

People visiting Jacmel go there to leave it — by boat to 
adjacent islands, or on mule-back over the mountains to the 
capital. On landing, I mounted a steep, street and inquired 



SEASODOMS 61 

about an ass to take me back to Port-au-Prince, for, like 
Sterne, I could commune with an ass forever and share with 
him my joys, sorrows and macaroons. Turning around to 
take a farewell view of our ship, I saw double — two ships, 
for the ''San Rafael," of the French Mail Line, had just 
entered the harbor. With a whoop — in fact, with two or 
three of them, I ran to the boat office to ask where that boat 
was bound for. The agent, who had a face dark as Cordova 
leather, and a pair of green spectacles like Moses in the 
"Vicar of Wakefield," said it was making for Santo Do- 
mingo, Porto Rico and French West Indies. I asked for a 
ticket for Santo Domingo. He shrugged his shoulders and 
answered it was impossible, for quarantine regulations were 
such that no passenger from Haiti was permitted to land 
on account of Haiti's smallpox. A ship violating these rules 
could be detained three weeks in Santo Domingo — not so 
much on account of the plague, 1 believe, as of the Domi- 
nican's jealous hate of Haiti, and because the Domingo 
Clyde Line was trying to boycott the Royal Dutch West In- 
dies Line which makes these ports. The agent said he could 
sell me a ticket to Porto Rico. I took it and then took in the 
town, with its children going to school ; the church, with its 
usual "imposing" position ; and the convicts, working in the 
streets, the only industrious individuals save some lighter 
men and women sorting coffee. 

When we rowed out to the French ship we were stopped 
at the gang by the steward, who Corbleu'd, Mon Dieu'd, 
Sacre Bleu'd and Diabl'd, declaring it was impossible to 
come aboard because we were from Haiti and might infect 
the belle bateau. But I must go, I wanted to "aller," and the 
company needed the money. When he found I had a ticket, 
as well as the permission of the captain and purser, who had 
been on shore buying provisions from this infested place, 
another French revolution was averted, and he gave me a 
carte blanche, helped me with my grand baggage, and with 
visions of "beaucoup" tips an American always gives, I 
scarcely restrained him from giving me a hug and "baiser" 
on both cheeks. 

The anchor was heaved, I heaved a sigh of relief, and 
offered a prayer for the poor souls compelled to live in Haiti 



62 SEASODOMS 

for life, where it requires a good constitution to stay a day 
— but Haiti hasn't a good Constitution, and so gets 
by. If Raphael Santi were living I would have him paint 
a picture of this ship, named after him, and have a copy of it 
in this book, that the reader might become so acquainted 
with it that when he saw its sailings advertised he would 
not take passage on it, if any other boat were available. Tis 
small, lists, smells; the cabins have feather-beds and no 
fans^ — most excellent accommodations for the tropics; and 
dirty latrines, unavoidable soup for breakfast, impossible 
French salads for dinner and supper (but plenty red and 
white wine to revive your drooping spirits) make you mis- 
erable as possible. The comparison between this and the 
''Allianca" was odorous, yet one should not be too critical 
about any boat that bears him away from Haiti. 

ST. DOMINIC DEVILS 

Santo Domingo, along whose mountainous coast we 
were cruising, is said by some historians to have been 
named by Chris, after his father, or after Sunday, on which 
day it was discovered, while others stoutly maintain it was 
in honor of St. Dominic — and if judged by the events which 
took place here, the isle is well named — that prince of the 
Church who believed more in the sword of steel than of the 
spirit, and led the cruel crusade known in history as the 
Albigensian war, carried on for years by his friend, Simon 
de Montfort. It was a war of extermination, in which lead- 
ing ecclesiastics led in damnable atrocity, destroying towns, 
murdering and torturing men, women and children. The 
godly abbot Arnold, at the capture of Eeziers, July 22, 1209, 
when asked how the heretics were to be distinguished from 
the faithful, gave the hellish reply, "Slay all ; God Vvill know 
his own." 

It is interesting to know the character of -the man 
whose name was given to this island, and some of the accom- 
plishments of his order. Dominic was born in old Castile 
in 1170, and there has never been soap enough to clean the 
blood off his hands and soul. He had the reputation of being 
an ascetic, eloquent, earnest, and of a "fiery zeal," which led 



SEASODOMS .63 

him to make the Lucifer match his followers later touched 
off, enkindling the fires of the Albigensian Inquisition. He 
went to Rome and perfected the organization ol Domini- 
cans, which, in 1216, received the *'God bless you" sanction 
of the Pope, and which, in five years, under his own cunning 
leadership*, was flourishing in most of the European coun- 
tries. Do not forget that Saint Dominic has the hell honor 
of being the founder of the inquisition at Languedoc, in 
1229, which hastened the extermination of the Albigensian 
sect. He is thus particeps criminis, since he did not remon- 
strate against his friend Montfort's fiendish persecutions, 
and so the glory of the later inquisition throws a burning 
halo around his head. 

Who were some of the leading apostles who thoroughly 
cherished the humanitarian religion and philosophy of St. 
Dominic, and once lived in old Santo Domingo? Cortez, the 
cut-throat conqueror cf Mexico ; Pizarro, the pig-driver 
plunderer of Peru ; Ovando, the butcher bigot of Santo Do- 
mingo ; Velasquez, the human viscera-extracting soothsayer, 
murderer and conqueror of Cuba; Columbus, the slave- 
dealing, Indian-slaughtering saint and patron of the K. C.'s ; 
Ponce de Leon, the death angel of the gentle aborigines in 
Santo Domingo and Porto Rico; Baiboa, who knew less 
about fa^:^ming than Horace Greeley, failed, jumped his cred- 
itors and board-bill, boarded a ship, sailed to Darien, became 
a high chief, from a peak got a peek at the Pacific, which 
the Indians had seen centuries before, became dizzy with 
success, and lost his head in 1517, through his commander, 
Davilla, who accused him of a rebellious plot. And, let us 
' emember, too, the benign influence of the order St. Dominic 
founded, fittingly called in England the ''black" friars, with 
a vow cf poverty limited to the countries they beggared. 
The prize pupil of the Dominican order was the Spanish 
monk, Torquemada, born in Spain in 1420, who achieved 
the distinction of being Inquisitor General in Spain in 1483, 
and established Tribunals at Seville, Cordoba and Toledo. 
He was a ''fryer," indeed. Good Pope Alexander VI be- 
lieved that Torq. had played too strong, and appointed four 
cdleagues to check his zeal, for he had burned 9,000 during 
his tenure of office. 'Twas this sweet disciple of St. Dom- 



64 _ SEASODOMS 

inic who pushed and persecuted the Jews and Moors out of 
Spain. The object of his religious order appeared to be to 
order nations off the face of the earth. Significantly, his- 
tory says the Spanish Inquisition fulfilled its most ''perfect" 
development in its Spanish American colonies. No doubt 
of it! 



SACRED AND PROFANE HISTORY 

After this pleasant walk in the bypath of history, let us 
return to the "San Rafael." The good thing about my bad 
state-room was that it got me out early on deck to see things 
going and coming. Outside the Ozama river harbor we 
sighted a four-stack American warship, wrecked near the 
shore, where it had been cast up by the sea several years 
ago. Long before, not far from here, Boabdilla's boat and 
fleet met a similar mishap and went to the bottom. The 
hurricane plays no favorites, whether the ship stakes are 
small or large. I suppose the old iron junk on this U. S. 
hulk was worth more than all of Chris.' or Boabdilla's fleet. 
The Spaniards had gold in their ships ; I had a little in this 
one, for the government had taxed me along with millions 
of others to build it. There was plenty of leisure to muse 
over this delightful subject, for we blew our whistle an hour 
before the scurvy doctor came aboard.. Still, this is quick 
action for a Spaniard under American occupation. The 
plaguey physician came, overlooked us, and our ship slid 
as easily into the mouth of the Ozama as an oyster down a 
Baltimore esophagus. After the anchor dropped asleep in 
a bed of mud, the tug-of-war came with the port officials. 
Despite the fact my passport was made out for Santo Do- 
mingo, and that I had a vaccination certificate, I was not 
permitted to step ashore, although they granted this privi- 
lege to an English passenger. Why an Englishman? Was 
it because Drake in 1585 for four weeks looted, sacked and 
burned the city, and then ducked away with 25,000 ducats ? 
Why this favoritism ? Why couldn't I land ? Had not our 
marines burned, looted, killed, established a military despot- 
ism and controlled the customs? A Dutch passenger, too, 
from Curacao, was granted shore leave, but when the officer 



SEASODOMS 65 

found I intended to go if he did, he revoked the permit and 
pompously said, ''No, we don't want any more damned 
Americans ashore." Yet one good thing came of this sad 
disappointment. The dirty decks of the "San Rafael," 
which had jiot been cleaned since Noah built it, were washed 
by the torrential tears of half a dozen Syrian men and 
women booked for this port and not allowed to land. To 
make my madness and their misery worse, we v/ere told 
we could proceed to Porto Rico and then return. Not if I 
could help it. 

Such was my fate. There was a far different fete for 
those on shore. Ships, docks, streets and custom house were 
all bedecked with flags and bunting, and the ruins, not to be 
outdone, had covered themselves with the glory of vines. 
Many idlers crammed the waterfront, watching the rowing 
and motor-boat races, while aspirants to fame and prizes 
walked out on a greased pole extending from the bank over 
the river. What idiotic amusements, proving the islanders 
to be wholly degenerate. What a come down from the an- 
cient holidays here, when there were hangings, quarterings, 
butcherings and other like pastimes of Spanish Christianity 
and civilization. The solicitous steward came to console 
me, saying, ''Voila!" and pointed his gnarled finger to the 
shore at an equally gnarled ceiba tree known as the "Colum- 
bus tree." Careful chroniclers are in honest doubt whether 
Chris, leaned against this ceiba, or kneeled in prayer, or 
took a nap, or hitched his boat to it, or did some other 
things under it. 'Tis time the great society of Knights, 
bearing the name of this man who did deeds without a name, 
should make a national appeal and collect more money to 
send some savant to settle this all-important event in the 
annals of the universe. There is another tree of which there 
is no doubt — one where Chris, hung his enemies. Tradition 
maintains Colum^bus was jailed in the Homenaje Castle, 
which we passed coming in the river. The only objection to' 
this theory is that it was built three years after his death. 
Though it was a holiday, prisoners were working around 
the walls. When here in 1909, I hiked to a pile of stones 
and bricks, near the bay at the river's mouth, where ze 
great Christopher Colombo is said to have been loaded with 
the favors he so often showed others — chains and irons. I 



66 SEASODOMS 

sadly paused and pondered, ''could it be," and recalled how 
some historians lamented his imprisoned fate. The fact is, 
Chris, should have been incarcerated for life. Had he been 
jailed here from then until now he would not have expiated 
his crimes. 

At his tomb I was even more uncertain and sad than 
at the jail, lest I might not be weeping at the right place. 
As a dog goes for a bone, I have followed Chris.' sacred 
bones in Seville, Havana, and here in the old fortress cathe- 
dral of 1514, which in spite of quakes, fires and attacks of 
pirates, stands like the hills. The church is plain outside, 
almost to ugliness, but within has many attractive objects 
in addition to the navigator's remains that are piled up with 
sacred relics from 2 to 400 years old. I gave my guide an 
extra tip to show me the holiest of holy things, that is, to 
the natives, and he directed me to a silver casket where, set 
in gold, is a piece of the La Vega cross. On one of its arms 
a Virgin descended and rested when Christian Chris, was 
walloping the heathen Indians in the year of our-Lord 1495. 
Hark ye, reader, now, as I was compelled to, to this holy, 
historical bunkum. Santo Cerro, know ye, is a holy hill on 
this isle at La Vega, 600 feet above a beautiful river, savan- 
nas and pine-clad hills. But the loveliest thing here to the 
sight of Columbus was his armored men disemboweling the 
defenseless Indians, and his ferocious bloodhounds dismem- 
bering the helpless heathen. To commemorate this glorious 
victory and be lovingly remembered when gone, he erected 
a cross on the spot. The Indians tried to defile and destroy 
it but were deterred when they saw the Virgin swoop down 
from heaven, and weary with her journey, sit on one beam 
of the cross and rest. Stones and arrows shot at her pierced 
her body with no fatal effect, and, like boomeranpfs, re- 
turned to smite and plague the assailants. Mirabile dictu ! 
A miracle. They fell on their faces, and other exposed parts 
of their anatomy, praying and praising the great Spirit for 
this miraculous manifestation. The Virgin, unused to such 
rough treatment, drew up her skirts in a huff and left — the 
cross remained. Spanish souvenir-hunters took all but one 
piece, which was brought to the old cathedral in Santo Do- 
mingo, where it was manipulated by the priests to produce 
miracles and raise money from the sale of indulgences. 



SEASODOMS 67 

Once a year, in this enlightened Twentieth Century, Domi- 
nicans flock here from all parts of the republic on pilgrim- 
age, climbing on knees from bottom to top of this holy hill 
to the church of Santo Cerro, built by their contributions. 
It is a Mecca for the ragged and maimed, like Lourdes and 
Guadeloupe, and for all who put their faith in supernatural 
cures. When we remember Chris.' pleasure at this massa- 
cre of the innocent Indians, we read with loving approval 
in his final will and testament that Diego, his legitimate 
son — not the bastard Fernando — when suitable time comes, 
should build on this island a church called Santa Maria de 
la Concepcion, to which was to be annexed a hospital like 
that of Italy and Castile, and **a chapel to say mass in for 
the good of my soul, and those of my ancestors and suc- 
cessors with great devotion, since no doubt it will please 
the Lord to give us a sufficient revenue for this and the 
afore-mentioned purposes." 

In the Santo Domingo Cathedral there is a *'Door of 
Pardon," through which any escaped criminal may claim 
security and pardon — a good place for the soul of Columbus 
to haunt when pursued by the Eumenides, for if there ever 
was a soul that needed mercy in the escape from justice, it 
was his. The great nave of the church was pointed out, but 
the biggest knave lies in the Italian marble tomb, in the 
ornamental urn, guarded by the two couchant lions. The 
chapels are 12 in number, one dozen too many. In chapel 
exhibit Nos. 2 and 5 are Velasquez's 12 apostles, and Muril- 
lo's Virgin above the altar. It is a serious question whether 
these artists, whose authentic works I revelled in in Spain, 
would recognize some works that bear their name. There 
may be dubious art criticism here about the paintings, but 
there is no doubt of the ''well done" in heaven of Mary and 
the apostles. During the occupation of the French, the 
church was despoiled of its gold and silver. One good thing 
in this Cathedral is stuck in the roof — a cannon-ball, sup- 
posed to have been fired by one of Drake's fleet in 1586. He 
had the right idea in a place filled with lying litanies, re- 
pulsive Christ-effigies, and a shrine for the glorification of 
the Genoese pirate, Christopher Columbus. Pilgramegs 
should be made here annually by humbug bishops, vagabond 
villains, and gory generalissimos of the world, 



68 SEASODOMS 

Ovando was another bird of paradise in this island, 
where he governed in a way that outdamned the evil of Mac- 
beth. He has left a memorial monument, but it is carved in 
cruelties, painted in blood and built with skulls and bones. 
This I>evil Don feared hell as he grew older, and threw a 
sop to justice Cerberus by building the church of San Nich- 
olas. The building has gone down in ruins, as he probably 
has, only the fine groined roof remaining. 

San Francisco is another of the dozen or so tumble- 
down church ruins that clutter the city, looming big on the 
hill back of Diego's house. This green and ivy-mantled pile 
was the first Franciscan monastery in the New World. 
Ojeda, one of Chris.' gang, was buried at the entrance of it: 
**In humility that all who entered might place their feet 
above his head" (how many wanted to put them on his neck 
in life?). Beneath the altar lies Don Bartholomew Colum- 
bus, who founded the city. Part of this old 'Frisco church 
is now used as the insane asylum, and the swinging vines 
and waving palm trees above the picturesque ruins move 
assent and applaud the fact that this great heap of stone 
has at least come to some good end. Other interesting build- 
ings are the Government Palace, Jesuit College, Arsenal, 
Barracks and Hospital. 

The sun was hot and so were we at being excluded from 
shore, though I readily recalled some hot times there, when 
I saw crumbling ruins, filthy houses and huts, gaudy taverns 
with godless people, l3lack wenches, rambling streets and 
gambling joints, booze parlors, bars, brothels, towers, ter- 
races and turrets, stucco buildings white and yellow, rough 
sidewalks, donkeys in narrow streets, stinking alleys, uncol- 
lected garbage. There were some whites, more mulattoes, 
and mostly blacks; lazy louts parading in wide sombreros 
and silk sash belts, etc., and ladies picturesque but not 
pretty. All this and more was included within the solid 
eight-foot thick wall of defense running around from the 
south cliff to the north — a wall stained yellow by Time, like 
an old Kentucky cuspidor by tobacco. Its classic stones are 
fallen in places and used as props for rickety hovels, shacks 
and dump-bins. Above you rise domes, gables, cupolas, tow- 
ers and bells; near you, palms, bananas, flaming flowers, 
green bushes and creepers. The city behind the old wall is 



SEASODOMS 69 

a decrepit, wrinkled duenna. The glory is departed — lords, 
ladies, conquistadores, rich and proud, are gone. One day 
I drove out into the country with the three weird brothers, 
Hecht, Birch and Gottschalk, successful business men, like 
Gradgrind, .demanding facts. We learned Santo Domingo 
was about twice the size of Haiti, with surface very moun- 
tainous; that it was covered with forests of valuable wood 
such as cedar, log-wood, mahogany and satin ; that the plains 
and valleys were watered and fertile ; that the products were 
sugar, coffee, cocoa, rice, bananas and tobacco ; that the pop- 
ulation was about 500,000, a mixed race from the Spanish 
and aborigines ; that the Spanish language was spoken ; that 
the roads are poor in the interior ; that there are about 150 
miles of railway; that education v/as free and compulsory, 
with 300 schools and 10,000 scholars; that Roman Catholi- 
cism was the dominant religion v/ith but ''limited toleration" 
of others. 

Ignorance, Indolence, Intolerance, Vanity and Vice 
have been Santo Domingo's real rulers from the time the 
Spaniards colonized it until 1844, when independence of the 
east section was gained and the Dominican republic formed. 
President Baez, in 1869, with our General U. S, Grant, 
signed a treaty for the annexation of Santo Domingo to the 
U. S. The Dominicans were glad to ratify the treaty, but 
our senate was not, its refusal being followed by a revolu- 
tion, the old and most popular pastime next to cockfighting. 
In 1886, General Heureaux was voted president, and was 
succeeded by President Jiminez in 1889. Then came Gen- 
eral Vasquez, who defeated him in 1902. This was followed 
by civil war in 1906. The devil was to pay and the Lord's 
treasury to be robbed. Finally our senate, in 1907, ratified 
a treaty, as did the Dominicans, which reads, "To assist the 
U. S. in the collection and application of the customs' reve- 
nues of the Dominican republic." This spilled the beans, in 
the words of John Milton. Things went from bad to worse 
until Dr. Henriquez Cavajal was chosen Provisional Presi- 
dent of the Dominican Republic by the Congress of that 
country, after the resignation of President Jiminez. Don 
Henriquez was chosen for six months, and at the expiration 
of that time an election was to be held. The U. S. had 
landed marines before Don took office, and was, in fact, in 



70 SEASODOMS 

control of the Republic at the time he was chosen Provi- 
sional President. Our government at once began negotia- 
tions with Don under which it was proposed to turn the 
government over to him. These negotiations ran along 
through the summer of 1916, but no agreement was reached, 
Henriquez not seeing his way clear to adopt the proposals 
of the United States government. These negotiations 
dawdled along until the 29th of November, 1916, when the 
military occupation was declared, with Captain (afterwards 
Rear Admiral) Knapp as military governor. In April of 
the following spring, the U. S. joined the Allies in the Euro- 
pean war. The military occupation has been continued up 
to the present time. 

The friends of the Provisional President are demand- 
ing of the Washington government the withdrawal of the 
military occupation, and the restoration of Dr. Carvajal 
as President. In other words, that the Dominican govern- 
ment be restored in all its parts to the position it occupied 
on the date of the proclamation of the occupation. This 
would be an acknowledgment by our government that its 
proclamation was not a justification for the occupation; in 
other words, that the entire proceeding by the United States 
government was without authority under international law. 

In accordance with section 8 of the Constitution of the 
United States, Congress is the only power authorized to 
declare war. In accordance with all principles of interna- 
tional law the physical occupation and military intervention 
of one nation in territory of another nation is an express 
act of war, no matter what the causes determining such 
occupation. 

Therefore, legally and actually, the taking possession 
of the Dominican Republic by the United States forces con- 
stituted an act of war. 

Notwithstanding this, in accordance with the Consti- 
tution, Congress is the only power authorized to declare 
war, and there is no legislative resolution of the United 
States Congress authorizing the President to perform an 
act of war against the Dominican Republic. 

Even supposing that President Wilson possessed au- 
thority to declare war as he did against Santo Domingo, the 
matter would be subject to analysis from the point of view- 




PORTO RICAN MOTHER AND CHILD 




I \ 

CURACAO REVELLERS 



SEASODOMS 73 

of the Monroe Doctrine. The Dominican Republic had ex- 
ternal debts to liquidate and she was liquidating them in 
due form. But even in case conditions in the republic had 
justified a moratorium, or if for any reasons she had not 
fulfilled her obligations, it is certain that in the German- 
American conflict of 1902, not the president of a republic, 
but the United States itself, propounded as a political theory 
the principle, which establishes : 

'Tublic debt cannot give rise to armed inter- 
vention and much less to material and military 
occupation of the soil of the American nations.'*' 
The United States is not guilty as a nation of this 
aggression, and Mr. Woodrow Wilson is the only responsi- 
ble party. The matter should be carried to the courts, inas- 
much as the Constitution does not authorize a president to 
declare war. Wilson not only did that, but curtailed the 
sovereignty of Santo Domingo, acted illegally in so doing, 
and is therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the courts. 

To quote Shakespeare, ''Now, in the name of all the 
gods at once, upon what meat doth this, our Caesar (Wil- 
son) feed, that he has grown so great?'' I talked with a 
soldier who returned from war on the ship that had borne 
our former President to France. One day during the voy- 
age, while the tired soldier boy was taking the long-denied 
luxury of a bath, he was rudely interrupted in his ablutions 
by a terrified steward, who exclaimed, "Get out of there — 
don't you know that was the bathtub used by President 
Wilson, and nobody has been in there since?" It is needless 
to state where my soldier friend told this hero-worshipper 
to go — that place which makes the temperature of a Turkish 
bath the North pole in comparison. The American steward 
was shocked, but remonstrated in vain. Holy smoke ! what 
lickspittk cravens some free-born Americans are ! And to 
think of venerating as sacred relics the bathtub parapher- 
nalia of a man who for president was as unfit as Admiral 
Knowles was for admiralship, whom Smollett satirized as 
being, "An admiral without conduct, an engineer without 
knowledge, an ofCicer without resolution, and a m.an with- 
out veracity " 

Dominic ans do not like the cocky, impudent, carpetbag, 
adventurous, military rule we have established here, though 



74 SEASODOMS 

they are pleased with the lottery sanctioned by U. S. mili- 
tary chiefs. 

When word came from Washington that American 
troops were to be withdrawn from Santo Domingo, there 
was such joy and jollification among the natives, that if we 
had gone back they would have gladly taken us ashore and 
"set 'em up" for anything we wanted. 

The ''San Rafael" was impatient to go — night's span- 
gled curtain dropped down over Santo Domingo's sanguin- 
ary stage with its melodrama of strutting Conquistadores 
and angel-making marines — the inhospitable structures 
with their expressionless facades were lit up now and then 
by a forlorn rocket — and we steamed away from this place 
which smells to heaven of death and desolation. Many are 
the legends of vanishing islands, and doubtless the Domini- 
cans wish their isle had been in this class, or had gone down 
with Atlantis. Adios, Santo Domingo! — happy are the 
people who have no history. 

Mona passage, lying between Santo Domingo and Porto 
Rico, and usually very rough, was gentle with us — the only 
rough thing we sighted being an island whose rocky walls 
are a pen for goats and hogs. 'Twould make an ideal peni- 
tentiary for stony-hearted men whose repentance wavers 
between good and evil like this isle's balancing rock called 
"Caigo-o-no-caigo" (''Shall I fail or no?"). Mona means 
monkey, but the only ones we saw were our French sailors 
climbing up and down the ropes, chattering and singing 
songs. 



MAYAGUEZ MISFORTUNES 

Buenos dias, Porto Rico. Mayaguez harbor is sleepy, 
safe and sultry; the town is quaint, queer and quiet; the 
port is important for imports and exports of sugar, coffee, 
oranges, pineapples and cocoanuts. The Porto Rico Rail- 
way enters the town, so did we. This is one of the foremost 
cities of the island and named after Our Lady Canolemas 
of Mayaguez. The population is 50,000 more or less — less 
when there is an earthquake. The principal buildings are 
the City Hall, San Antonio hospital. Courthouse, Market, 



SEASODOMS f^ 

and U. S. Experiment Station where the attempt is being 
made to teach ignorant planters and officials how to get out 
of their agricultural trouble and turn their rich districts 
into money. 

We had a narrow escape and just missed the earth- 
quake here^ — by two years — when Mother Earth, dissatisfied 
with a small ''shake," shimmied, shivered and shook, bring- 
ing down the house to the great delight of Terror, Havoc 
and Panic who applauded. These three Graces had been 
here before with Ponce de Leon, the buccaneers and our ~ 
Americans, as history-readers know. 

Mayaguez has an asylum for the poor, and after one is 
rowed to shore and his baggage carted to the Custom House, 
he should plan to go there and spend the night — about all 
he has left to spend. Hotel Palmer was our choice. It is 
considerably different from the famous Chicago hostelry, 
and so situated that you can easily grab the street-car that 
goes down hill by gravity and up hill by storage. It runs 
on a track, not on any schedule, save of its own sweet will. 

Like a man knocked senseless, who slowly comes to and 
picks himself up, Mayaguez is beginning to recover from 
the quake. The ruins are fine — ^all they are cracked up to 
be. The Cathedral and some private and public buildings 
have been repaired and are rising to the Amphion tune of 
American dollars, but the old. Custom House by the water- 
front is terribly tumbled down — a poor ad for the city, may- 
hap, yet a good way to excite sympathy from those who land. 
Is the town like a ragged beggar trying to get money? In 
a near radius of the Custom House are many homes filled 
with nakedness, rubbish and wretchedness. A bunch of 
big, black loafers, who won't work and to beg are not 
ashamed, are fit figures in this picture of desolation. At 
night you stumble over their sleeping bodies on sidewalk 
and step, and put to flight their rodent friends. Buildings 
are propped not only by joists but by these vagabonds who 
lean up against them. 

Mayaguez streets all lead to the crack of Doom, for 
intersections are few and far between, and when you reach 
a corner in a state of exhaustion, you are glad to meet the 
orange-seller who peels a large "deluscious" one for a cent. 
Here you stand and eat, and suck, and smack to your heart's 



^6 S E A S O t) d M S 

and stomach's content, often becoming extravagant and 
spending a nickel at a time. Orange seeds give the streets 
a seedy appearance. Next to this occupation of standing 
on the corner eating oranges, is the native pastime of walk- 
ing in the Columbus plaza Sunday in front of the Cathedral. 
One would think their main ambition in life was to wear 
out the stones there as well as their shoes. The band did 
not play this Sunday evening because the drummer and 
others had gone on a strike. So the boys and girls furnished 
their own chin music, the lads in their straw-hat best and 
the ladies powdered like so many doughnuts in a pan. The 
best-looking, behaved, and most artistic people in the plaza 
are the many metal statues posed around the enclosing 
square, looking on with silent indifference. Yes, there is the 
ubiquitous statue of the iniquitous Chris., who appears to 
be more in evidence in these islands than the Creator, and 
is more remembered. 

The church founded on the ''rock" had been rocked by 
a quake and was in a state of repair. When I entered, the 
''father" left the sheep for us goats who butted in, showed 
us the ruins and pointed to some large boxes, just received, 
containing a new altar. The church welcomes the "pres- 
ents" of strangers. 

One afternoon I was nearly thrown out of my hotel 
chair by an explosion, which so frightened a horse that it 
started into a drugstore opposite for a soothing prescrip- 
tion. It was not a thunderbolt. Wall St. bomb, or herald of 
a revolution, simply an enterprising movie manager's way 
of advertising his new reel. This was on the main street, 
and since two-thirds of the town is illiterate, it is a good 
way to announce the programs. A similar fashion of press 
advertising I had seen in Muna, Yucatan, where rockets 
are sent off to inform the Indians a new picture has come 
to town and will appear that night. 

Mayaguez is not moribund. One night my dreamy ear 
was alarmed by the incessant ringing of a bell and the firing 
of pistols. Catastrophes are fashionable here, whether they 
be tidal waves, earthquakes or fire. The streets soon 
filled with hurrying crowds, carts and autos, all lit up by 
the glare of a burning store on the plaza. The fi.re was a 
success, not only from a comedy and spectacular view-point, 



SEASODOMS 11 

but because the building and contents were wholly de- 
stroyed. The fire department wore fiery costumes that cried 
**fire !" and the men marched and countermarched up, down 
and around ; when the engine broke down they took to the 
hand-pumps; then the hose burst and threw water like a 
sprinkling cart. If this douche spray had only been sus- 
pended over the building the fire would have gone out. And 
through it all one fireman stood erect like the Pompeiian 
soldier. He had a hose in his hand directed towards the 
flames — but there was not water enough in it to sprinkle a 
baby. When the fire went out of its own accord, I went too. 

Mayaguez is the third city of size in the island and 
takes third place in sanitation and education, reflecting 
small credit on America's 23 years' occupation that prides 
itself on these two things. Filthy streets lead to a dirty 
market. If the natives like rats, as the aboriginals did, they 
can find plenty here. 

In encompassing the city with my legs as a pair of 
compasses, I met a brother Mason on the square. He wore 
no badge, I did. He saw it, started ; I smiled and gave him 
the glad hand, and he led me at once to his lodge tucked up a 
pair of stairs in a tiny hall, an illustration of Richter's ''In- 
visible Lodge." It was a Blue Lodge done in red. As usual, 
the "best" men of the city were members and worthy and 
well qualified to make good citizens. 

Mayaguez schools are a paradise for small boys who 
like to play hookey. I spoke with a little fellow who was in 
the quake two years ago, and who had been attending school 
ever since — when there was no ''flu" or tremor to prevent. 
There is this satisfaction, that when a teacher is about to 
chastise a pupil the ceiling may fall on her head and break 
the ruler in her hand, or when the lazy scholar is about to 
fall down in his arithmetic examination at the blackboard, 
it may cave in and be reduced to vulgar fractions. 

PONCE PENCILINGS 

We left Mayaguez in a hurry — not the town, but our- 
selves, though we slowed down some just before meeting 
a funeral procession, the only life seen on the road till we 



n SEASODOMS 

struck San German, a quaint old burg of the vintage of 1512, 
founded by Diego, the son of Chris. It has been moved 
around like a chessman by the shrewd play of events — 
Indians and pirates. This "city of hills" lies in hills which 
amuse themselves by directing the trade winds, thus mak- 
ing San German second only on earth to Los Angeles. As 
our car sped along we saw sugar-cane in the lowlands and 
coffee and fruit on the hillside. Up, down, and around we 
go over this isle of ''Borinquen," which means ''fatherland 
of powerful men," though we found no such strong descend- 
ants, for the fire of the sun and cigaret has shrunk the 
modern Porto Rican. Many towns are full of dust, interest 
and degenerate-looking natives who were eyeing the chick- 
ens passing by, or admiring the roosters they intended to 
fight on the sly, since cock-fighting is tabu. Yauco leans 
for support on its sugar-cane and is devoted to coffee and 
church. Guanica, famed for sugar, tobacco, fruit, fibres 
and cabinet wood, is eight miles from Yauco, but was nine 
when General Miles brought his U. S. troops here, July 25th, 
1898, and invaded Porto Rico. 

Ponce de Leon failed to discover a "fountain of youth," 
yet I discovered a town in Porto Rico named after him, 
where my reading friends, who have lost their youth 
through various ways, may find rest on their way to the 
grave. Ponce possesses an insane asylum, woman's hos- 
pital, St. Luke's hospital, general hospital and a blind 
asylum. It is physically flat, but not to the taste of the 
traveler. Though its buildings are low you can have a high 
old time in this Spanish-looking and speaking town. As 
usual the shaded plaza is the center of attraction, particu- 
larly at night, where there are just two things to do — look 
at the girls, and listen to the band in the kiosk which out- 
toots the organ chant in the adjacent Cathedral. I jazzed 
into church and sat down, but being warm, and a little rusty 
in my Latin, came out to cool off, and sat down on one of the 
plaza's mosaic benches that advertised "frescos helados." 

One receives an insight into Ponce "annas" and Marys 
by taking a car-ride through the streets and viewing what 
is going on and off inside the houses. The Playa is a busy 
place with bull-carts and drays on their way to the water- 
front. I took a muelle car — not a mule but trolley — ^to the 



SEASODOMS 79 

large new wharf. Ponce is spelled with a capital P, for as 
the second city in the island it promotes industry, commerce, 
shipping, and most of Porto Rico's coffee, sugar, rum and 
tobacco. The muelle pier is a sort of seaside resort to which 
the people had not yet resorted, because it was full of empty 
dining ro6ms and disconsolate waiters. One need not die of 
ennui at Ponce, for a few days at least, since he may bet on 
the horse-race at the hippodrome, attend the big La Perla 
Theatre, or cinemas, lounge at the clubs or Casino, and play 
baseball at the park, though he may not drink the good old 
stuff for prohibition prevails. 

The population of the city is about 30,000, of the dis- 
trict 63,000. Early Spaniards depopulated the island ; today 
many sailors and tourists come here and repopulate it. 
Ponce is the parterre of Porto Rico, the clipped trees on the 
streets suggesting Barcelona. The climate produces kids 
and orchids. Orchids hang from the boughs and often the 
'phone and telegraph wires are decorated like a Norway 
Christmas tree. The natives are wild on plants and flowers 
as seen in their patios, balconies and gardens — scenically, 
all very beautiful — but remember that the stinking tobacco 
weed is their favorite plant. I visited one and saw the rolled 
up cigars and cigarets for which such a roll of money is 
spent to go up in rolling clouds of smoke. The local fac- 
tories turn out hats, laces, rum, soda-water and drawn work. 

Were I a big boy here it would be impossible for me to 
play truant, the teachers are so alluring and enticing. Sun- 
day I watched them promenading on the Plaza Delicias, and 
Monday teaching in the school. Ponce is strong on educa- 
tion. If the graduates are as strong, symmetrical and 
attractive as the building I visited, they will become firm 
pillars and supports in the city. There are som.e 37 rural 
schools in the near district, 8 graded ones in the Playa sub- 
urb, a large high school in town, 61 graded schools in the 
district, and many kindergartens. Yet with all this the 
adult portion of the island shows over 50 per cent illiteracy. 
There are too many children in the streets, too few in the 
schools. The island lacks building facilities and teachers. 
Many of the school-houses are small, there is lack of hygienic 
surrounding, salaries are low and teachers poor. During 
the school year of 1918 and 1919 there were in Porto Rico 



80 SEA SODOMS 

441,465 children of legal school age, i.e., between five and 
eighteen years, and 222,783 children of compulsory school 
age, i.e., between 8 and 14 years ; of the aforesaid number 
only 160,794 were enrolled; at the end of the third school 
month of the current school year only 175,326 were enrolled ; 
more children could not be admitted for lack of teachers and 
facilities. 5-200 additional school rooms are necessary. 
Ponce is unlike other Porto Rican cities and we were con- 
stantly reminded of a Central and South American town. 
It has ice and milk factories, 'phones, electric lights, the 
terminus of the American Porto Rico Railway, and good 
water — yet with the exception of the last, their ancestors 
got on very well without these things. 



A MILITARY COURSE 

Between Ponce and San Juan winds a military road 
built by the Spanish a hundred years ago. I doubt whether 
there are better ones in Mars itself. Bidding farev/ell to 
Ponce v/ith its flowers and spreading shade-trees, we are 
borne along by hills and meadows "dotted" with horses and 
cattle, and ascend 500 feet. If you are sick and need a drink 
there are medicinal springs at Coama. On we whiz by tree- 
ferns, palms and bamboo; twist and turn with views of 
mountain, hill and valley; climb by huts, till we reach the 
summit of the range, 3,000 feet, with a glimpse of the Carib- 
bean shining like a mirror beneath. Dropping a thousand 
feet, Abonita appears, begirt with mountains like Jerusa- 
lem. Now the chauffeur corkscrews his way to Cayey, with 
its barracks, 1,300 feet above the sea. The Spaniards were 
good road-builders, for within 15 miles you can rise and fall 
2.000 feet without breaking your neck — at least I did. 
Change of altitude affects the lungs, but my pantings were 
"Oh" and "Ah" (exclamations of joy, as we went swinging 
around curves, crossed old bridges, discovered rivers, or 
stared at the wealth of poincianas. Caguas is the next stop. 
It has a population of 30,000, the finest island school, and 
everything and everybody is saturated with tobacco. There 
were many other towns we glimpsed en route, the names 
and importance of which are immaterial to the reader. 



SEASODOMS 81 

Were I to give them I would probably misspell and the 
reader mispronounce them. In fact, little in this world mat- 
ters much, and some cynical philosopher has said nothing 
is important, not even the eminent nobodies who think they 
are. But stay — though it is possible to do without knowl- 
edge, religion, politics, government and people, how can we 
do without our smokes and tobacco ? 

Behold a Pisgah panorama — splendid, sublime, stu- 
pendous, etc. — of tobacco plantations all covered with cheese 
cloth to protect the young plants, making the landscape look 
like springtime in Norway when the snow is half -melted off 
the mountains — like clouds that have tumbled out of the sky 
into the valley — like mammoth circus tents — like the laun- 
dry of the Gods spread out to dry—like court-plaster on the 
face of the mountains — like feathers from moulting angels. 
When Porto Rico was discovered by the Spaniards the na- 
tives were found to be lovers of the weed and liked it for the 
smoke, smell, taste and narcotic effect, but they had no 
genius and lived a useless life. Today there is more busi- 
ness and less pleasure, and the tobacco leaf has been turned 
into gold leaf, men, women and children spending their 
whole lives in planting, cutting, dyeing, curing, sorting, 
bundling, tying and baling this weed. The Caguas ware- 
houses and packing plants are large enough for government 
offices at Washington. You see how necessary it is for the 
U. S. to educate the Porto Ricans so they can give us good 
smokes. 

Our auto spins across the span of an old Spanish bridge, 
brushes by feathery bamboo and peaceful palm, while we 
gaze at foothills that roughride the horizon with spurs to 
the Luquilia range. The road is a reel movie — schoolboys 
on cycles — business men and tourists in autos — big trucks 
filled with soldiers — natives astride horses and donkeys — 
bullock-carts trundling along — all on the go and busy as 
those who cross London Bridge. People white, brown and 
yellow, old and young, rich and poor, city-bred or country- 
fed, pass and repass you. Convicts, working on the road, 
have learned the "way" of the transgressor is hard; U. S. 
boys, nervy, natty, naughty and nice, dash by ; fat old black 
Dinahs, in flaming colors, carry bundles and baskets on 
their head ; and Porto Ricans, long, lank and brown, tramp 



82 SEASODOMS 

with bare feet along the hard road, with their head high up 
because of some real or supposed drop of Spanish blood 
tingling in their veins. Should you be hungry, you will meet 
many itinerant peddlers who will be glad to sell you bread, 
milk, eggs, fruit, or fancy cake, candy and ice-cream. Seven 
miles from San Juan is Rio Piedras with its normal school, 
Porto Rico University and reservoired waters for San Juan. 
Next comes Borinquen Park, with its sandy beach and cocoa 
grove, San Turce, tropical Condado, where American and 
Porto Rican officials live in style, then Puerta de Tierna, the 
slum district, where the wireless seems to stretch out its 
hands for help, and we boldly approach the Plaza of Lions 
with court and fountain, and enter the busy capital of the 
island. 

San Juan de Bautista, the old Baptist, vv^elcomed me, 
as he had on the occasion of a former visit. That night I 
slept in his Palace Hotel, despite the mosquitoes, with its 
Pisa-like light-shaft through which falls the glorious noon 
sunshine, and up which one gazes at night, as through a 
telescope, at stars and moon. I had no friends to look up 
in town, so I looked up its history instead. Will it not be 
glorious some day to go to a place where there is no history 
for me to write or you to read ? 

A CRACK-BRAINED BUTCHER 



Casa Blanca, or white house, was the residence of Ponce 
de Leon. He wasn't in ; I was a trifle late — five centuries. 
Some aver he never was in it, for it was built several years 
after his death and occupied by a prosy Mr. John Proche 
who took Ponce's name, and like the tail with the hide, all 
that went with it. Yet tenderfeet must be accommodated 
with show places. Whether he lived here or not, it is worth 
seeing by sunset or moonrise — if you can get by the guards 
there to prevent you. At noon 'tis so hot you imagine the 
old reprobate souls of the Dons have come up to wander 
about, and left the Hades door open. I stood upon this an- 
cient Spanish pile of architecture, 30 feet above the city 
wall, and viewed the sky, sea, terrace, garden and walls, 
which I had glimpsed before, and may again, for the omni- 



SEASODOMS 83 

present movie man was there with his machine trying to 
take the town — something the Dutch did in 1678, and the 
English did not in 1595 and 1797. 

Ponce de Leon was born in 1460 and acted "like sixty" 
all his life. He was a court page and the book of his life 
would make "better" reading if some of its pages were cut 
out. Weary of Spain and Europe, and of killing the Moors, 
he booked on a specially conducted tour under Chris, in 
1493. This Ponce de "Lay on" soldier of fortune was one 
of misfortune to others wherever he went. In Haiti he was 
the right hand of Ovando, murdering Indians right and left. 
Thence he caravalled to Porto Rico, where he was so hospi- 
tably entertained that the only suitable return he could make 
was to go back to Haiti and return with permission to con- 
quer and kill them. Those who didn't die were put in 
mines to work where they soon did. His love labor was lost, 
though, and in two years he was out of a job. Jealous of 
Columbus he was anxious to find a new world for himself, 
for he was growing old, and when he was just about despair- 
ing he read an ad in the morning paper that there was a 
fountain of perpetual youth. He packed up his trunk and 
started off for it. True, skeptical historians have stripped 
this story of its fanciful garments, saying the naked truth 
was that Ponce was looking for a syphilis-cure — whether 
for himself or pro bono publico has not been determined. 
He embarked with three ships, evidently hoping to bring 
the water back for bottling purposes at so much per. Acci- 
dentally and incidentally he "discovered" Florida — which 
Vespucci had found some years before — ^that happy hunting 
ground of Indians, alligators and real estate speculators. 
Sad, deluded man, he kept cruising about the Caribbean 
looking for drinking-water, yet he was no more foolish than 
those who sail around the Bahamas today in search of booze, 
the elixir of death, not life. He grew older in his search for 
youth. On one key he found not youth, but an old woman, 
who jabbered in all keys that she knew where the hootch 
fountain flowed. Like a true daughter of Eve, she gaily de- 
ceived this son of Adam. Foolish Ponce, didn't you know 
enough not to rely on any woman, young or old ? He came 
back to San Juan and packed her off with his captain, Juan 
Perez, who finally returned without her. How did he lose 



84 SEASODOMS 

her? or did she find the spring, become rejuvenated, and gO 
off with some younger and handsomer man? What a crack- 
brained old nut Ponce was, saith the reader. Yes, almost as 
idiotic as those who make chimerical quests today : the old 
man who seeks happiness in a young wife ; the minister who 
looks for truth in creeds ; the student for success in a col- 
lege; the soldier for liberty in war; the citizen for justice in 
courts, or honesty in riches. Failing to find the fountain 
and unwilling to lose more time. Ponce took a Carib cruise 
to Guadeloupe. Here the men he sent for food and water 
were ambushed and killed, and the women, who had taken 
the ship's laundry ashore, were Lockinvar'd by the canni- 
bals. Defeated, he returned to San Juan where as governor 
he growled around in his palace-cage till becoming so blood- 
thirsty he broke loose again and set out to conquer Florida. 
But there this old mangy lion got a thorn in his side, in the 
shape of an Indian arrow, from the effects of which he died 
in Cuba. i 

The ashes of this restless rogue rest in the San Juan 
Cathedral. I stood before the inscription that sings his 
praises and thought of the many worthy ones he had sent 
to tombless dust. In the San Jose Plaza stands a statue of 
him made from the British cannon captured from the invad- 
ers in 1797, and in the near-by church his remains reposed 
from 1559 to 1863. Excellent to erect statues to founders of 
cities, yet in all my world travels I have never found one to 
the memory of Cain, builder of the first city. Why this 
favoritism ? 



THE MADHOUSE 

I left the Casa Blanca White House and the memory of 
its madman and murderer, with the sad thought that there 
were others. From this house of the dead insane I turned 
to the house of the living insane. The asylum doctor was 
my Virgilian guide through this Inferno and he warned me 
against some frightful sights I was to see. If you are not 
crazy before you enter the asylum you may be ere you de- 
part. 'Tis a rocky, rambling, rickety old structure unworthy 
of the fine site it occupies, and should be pulled down and 



SEASODOMS 85 

rebuilt. But this takes money. Even now there are not 
enough attendants for the insane attendance. Let me intro- 
duce you to some of the leaders in this genteel society — a 
woman on a cot shrieking like a fiend; an ancient hag, 
crouched in a corner, v/ith matted hair, rheumy eyne, and 
slavering lips, moaning and gurgling to herself; a coquet- 
tish young maiden strenuously objecting to the style of 
straight-jacket two nurse maids were forcibly urging her to 
put on. She yelled, scratched, struck and fell in a heap on 
the floor. Another on a bed was filling the air with obscene 
cries. Descending to the dark dungeons we found the cells 
where the wild women are thrown in at night stark naked, 
on bare board shelves, lest they strangle themselves with 
shreds of their clothing. The nauseating open drain lava- 
tories in the floor were being cleaned out. In another sec- 
tion I watched a naked man running around his cell like a 
great ape and leaping up and grabbing the bars, around 
which he wrapped his legs and arms, all the while gibbering 
and grinning at us. Another in a straight-jacket lay howl- 
ing on his bed and attempted to rip the sheets to shreds with 
his teeth. Others sat around in groups, in short Mother 
Hubbard suits, showing their scaly, matterated arms and 
legs. A barred court, like an animal arena, was filled with 
savage men who paced about, gestured, mumbled and made 
faces at us. Over in the corner, spotted like a toad on the 
banks of Acheron, with a head and shoulders built on the 
lines of Socrates, sat a man afflicted with some aw^ful com- 
plaint. This philosopher had it in for the universe, for ever 
and anon he lifted up his head and voice to the sky, shooting 
out a volley of curses and blasphemies that reverberated 
through the corridors. I was forced to listen to one mad- 
man for five minutes who had the fluency of Spanish speech 
but no coherence — just Hamlet's "words, words, words." 
Yet there was another whose words I thoroughly under- 
stood. He followed me with his evil eye, came near, and 
yelled with damnable iteration, "Americano no good, mucho 
malo." If he referred to this asylum in this American pos- 
session, he said the right thing, for it would be a disgrace 
to heathen Mexico. Our American treasury has much money 
for many mad schemes — why not spend some of it in the 
wards of this madhouse? Swift proposed a hospital for 



86 §EASODdM^ 

incurables, physical and mental, ''incurable fools, knaves, 
scolds, scribblers, infidels, liars, whores, not to mention the 
incurably vain, envious, proud, affected, impertinent, and 
ten thousand other incurables." If in the future we have 
any money left, let's take a hint from the Dean and build an 
asylum in Washington for American incurables, i.e., office- 
hunters, war-makers, editorial hacks, spring-poets, movie- 
habitues, baseball fans, golf, tennis and football cranks, 
post-war profiteers and clerical propagandists. 

MARS MEMORIALS 

If, as Andreyev writes in his "Red Laugh," war is in- 
sanity, there are many relics in San Juan of its methodical 
madness, from the American Army Headquarters at Casa 
Blanca, and mouldering Morro and San Cristobal forts, to 
city gates and walls. There is one old gateway of 1749 
through which we passed unchallenged, the only sentry be- 
ing a native washerwoman anxious to make the contrast 
between her face and clothes great as possible. The bat- 
tered wood doors have held their years well with giant 
brass-headed nails. They were open for us as for the trad- 
ers of yore who came to land, leave and get their cargo. 
How many years have marched through these gates, carry- 
ing with them the warriors, merchants and adventurers as 
prisoners ! 

If thou hast a craving to rove and roam over weather- 
beaten walls, time-eaten turrets, piles of stone covered with 
vines, moss and sentinel palms, or winding stairways, keeps, 
tunnels and dungeons — by rusty cannon, scarred sentry- 
boxes, embrasures, torture-chambers, scarps, fosses, bas- 
tions, tenailles, vaulted passages, moats, paved platforms, 
observatories and signal stations — ^by all means hike ye to 
morose Morro and San Cristobal forts where not even a 
goat can scale their ramparts. Here dungeon walls have 
echoed to the fearful cries of fiendish persecution. Michael 
Angelo complains in one of his sonnets, that while painting 
the Sistine Chapel, he became so twisted that he grew a 
goitre, that his belly was driven close up to his chin, and 
that straining like a Syrian bow he acquired a squinting 



SEASODOMS 87 

brain and eye — yet Mike never suffered as these prisoners 
did. He only suggests what they received here with their 
necks shoved in a niche of rock, their chin pressed to their 
knees and an iron bar clamped over their chest. Is it any 
wonder that 'tis said Der Teufel was in the habit of kid- 
napping Spanish guards from the fort? His majesty must 
have needed such men in hell to devise new tortures. I 
started to enter one of these cells of cunning cruelty, but the 
grunt of a pig — or was it the groan of a former occupant — 
gave me a fright and cooled my ardor for further explora- 
tion. I was glad to crawl out to light of sun and smell of sea. 

BAD FOLKS 

Faint with these horrors and sorely in need of strength 
which even a banana would give, I walked to the market, 
overlooking the sea, where vivacious venders were bargain- 
ing over cabbage, lettuce, potatoes, garden-truck, melons, 
pines and grapefruit, but bananas, there were none, so I 
compromised on some wizened oranges. On this wall was 
other tempting fruit for sale — Porto Rican cocottes, in skill- 
fully disarranged toilettes, seated in doorways and windows, 
winking at you — the police wink at them — and inviting you 
to enter and learn their philosophy of enjoyment. These 
brothel booths with maiden merchandise are found else- 
where in San Juan, and smirking senoritas are oft seen 
loitering around hotel corridors. You may take them to the 
movies, or permit them to escort you to Hades. Little 
brother often solicits for his sister. Near St. Anne's con- 
vent two girls of the frail sisterhood, during high business 
hours, offered me bargain prices on their charms, but the 
traffic cop, dudey and debonair, saw them and hurried to 
tell me, in slightly fractured English, they were "Bad — very 
bad — no good." I heeded his warning, yet from the columns 
of the local press it is evident that many do not, since there 
are many prominent ads of doctors and drugs for "vias 
urinarias, sifilis y enfermedades de la sangre." 

As in venerable Venezia, one finds a prison and palace 
on either hand, for the jail is situated just below the Gov- 
ernor's Palace and slapped up against the old city wall like 



88 SEASODOMS 

a lean-to shed. It is far from modern, large but not light, 
and not fireproof. We saw the hospital wards, kitchen, 
laundry, shoe, tailor and workshops where prisoners offered 
us souvenirs for sale. Why buy? To help the man inside, 
whom we refuse and reject outside and so compel him to 
steal and get back in again. Upstairs was a section where 
bad boys were herded in a small room doing nothing so much 
as avoiding the guard's switch. Had they been in school 
before, they wouldn't have been forced to learn in a prison 
cell. An institution like this would not be tolerated in the 
U. S. Why then permitted under our occupation? Of 
course this doesn't read ''nice," but what I am writing about 
isn't nice. A book-seller on the plaza told me that if I wrote 
a book and said "nice" things about San Juan, he could sell 
many of them, but if not, not. Yea, "Verrilly." One may 
use a whitewash pen and get money out of his book-sale 
here, but I do not care to obtain money under false pre- 
tenses. Many "nice" flatterers think they are dedicating 
their works, like Swift, to "Prince Posterity," yet these 
bum writers are simply furnishing posterior material. 



SAN JUAN SIGHTS 

One night in the Plaza Principal I met an old resident 
of San Juan I had seen here ten years before. He was 
seated in a rocking chair. I asked him how times were and 
he sadly said, "Rotten — the band plays tonight, but where 
are the people? Home — they don't like to come to funerals." 
Around us were beautiful shade trees, electric lights, fine 
cement walks, the music was well rendered, but the life, 
laugh and promenade were with Villon's snows of yester 
year. Patriotic Porto Ricans want independence and 
drinks, all of this and something more. 

If you would like to see how dirty Porto Ricans can be, 
though surrounded by water, take the ferry boat with 
Behrens and me and run across the bay to Catano with its 
miry streets, horrible hovels of debris architecture, noisy 
women, naked children, mud, slime and slum. Many of the 
families of San Juan cigar-workers live here — if it may be 
called living to eke and reek out a mere existence. Other 



SEASODOMS 89 

slum sections of San Juan are not far from the Y. M. C. A. 
and Carnegie Library, both so far out from town that they 
do not reach the masses for whom they were intended. The 
buildings are well built and furnished, and one wonders why 
the natives do not make daily tours to them for the moral 
and mental stimulus they offer. 

San Juan's high school is housed in low-built, yellow- 
painted sheds that resemble barracks or pest-houses — ugly 
accommodations for the pretty American school teachers 
who are trying to do good work under great difficulties. 
Not long ago some school boys and girls went on a strike 
when it came to learning English, because they said Porto 
Rico was soon to be independent. In the recent election the 
Independence party won and now flies an Independence flag. 
During the holidays I saw it decorating store-windows, and 
in the newspapers politicians make their appearance in 
photos with the Independence flag spread out between them. 
In my ride between Ponce and San Juan I noticed a number 
of American flags floating upside down on the public schools. 

The city prides itself on the Baldorioty de Castro Tech- 
nical trade school. The director, Mr. Herman Hjorth, 
showed me around. Instruction is free, and supported by 
the municipality of San Juan at the annual cost of $25,000. 
The new building is architecturally imposing, roomy and 
airy, has wide halls, ample class rooms, a large assembly 
hall and classes for everything between plumbing and paint- 
ing. It is right up-to-date in anything you care to learn 
with hand or head, in sharp contrast with the R. C. school 
next door. I visited the trade school several times and 
addressed a number of the classes. 

I took a swing around to the Union Club and the Casino. 
At the former institution the notice "no gambling" was un- 
noticed by the players in its inside rooms. A personal letter 
from a Spanish author admitted us to the Casino. The 
empty ballroom was a dream — what a waking reality when 
filled with dancing fairies. En route to the Teatro we en- 
Countered an outdoor show. I thought the star performer 
was an acrobat or contortionist, but learned through an 
interpreter he was only a "soapboxer" descanting on the 
color question. No, he was not an artist. Ye Teatro Munic- 
ipal is builded in old Spanish style and served us a mixed 



90 S E A S D M S 

program of song and dance for three hours. I frankly con- 
fess I did not understand the songs but could appreciate the 
dance movements. The theatre faces the Plaza Colon, a 
pretty square, defaced by a colossal statue of Chris. — the 
man in whom centered all the vices and villanies of his age ; 
who had the world's consent and approval of his death; 
whose life was valuable only to himself; and in honor of 
whom Porto Rico public schools yearly celebrate October 
12th. 

The Governor of the island was appointed by our for- 
mer president — it goes without saying he was a Southerner. 
He is of the Kentucky kind, as genial and hospitable as those 
I met during my four years' Ky. pastorate among fair 
women and brave men. Governor Yager amended my pass- 
port for Curacao and Venezuela — such little matters are 
easier fixed away from home than at Washington. His 
honor felt it was still too early co give the island indepen- 
dence because of its prevailing disease, poverty and illit- 
eracy, which we have been unable to cure and correct, 
strange as it may seem, though we have been here since 
1898 when the island was ceded to us by the Treaty of Paris. 

A PAGAN CHRISTMAS 

Whistler called Chicago a "hog town" — he should have 
been in San Juan the day before Christmas when the natives 
carried about little live pigs in their hands or under their 
arms, and at night in public cafe or private home baked 
Mr. Porker to a crackling brown crisp that would have made 
Charles LamTD's mouth water, splutter and stutter eulogistic 
dissertations on roast pig equal to anything in China. This 
night pigs are stuffed and the people are stuffed with pigs, 
till Christmas morning they dream more of pigs in the pen 
than of angels in the sky. In restaurants I saw the two and 
four-legged variety in contented tete-a-tetes. The motto 
for this evening is *'In Hog Signo Vinces." At ancient fes- 
tivals the natives partook of wood rats, rabbits, bats, lizards, 
frogs, spiders and grubs, and I suppose enjoyed them just 
as much as San Juan's citizens do their Xmas eve pig din- 
ner. When in San Juan do as the Porco Reek'uns do, and 



SEASODOMS 91 

we did. This holy night his well-known sulphureous High- 
ness ruled. Merrymakers on the cars were full of rum and 
exuberance. A lonely outcast, invited to no Christmas 
party, my Christmas tree was the palm tree lighted by moon 
and stars, the music the sea waves, and the gifts the price- 
less mehiories of friends beyond the sea. Since it was 
Christmas tide I strolled to the Condado ocean beach where 
there is a Vanderbilt hotel palace that would make Neptune 
turn green with envy. There's no place like home Xmas 
time, and the few visitors who were playing billiards, and 
the orchestra that was playing out, were homesick. 

The Cathedral bells rang out the Christmas chime from 
the old tower as they had since 1549. The church was 
packed, lights blazed, incense burned, choirs sang, organ 
pealed, sleigh-bells kept time, processionals passed before 
the altar, the priests genuflected, the plate was passed re- 
peatedly, the chapels were ablaze, children crowded round 
the manger cradle — then came the climax, a Bambino de- 
partment store doll was brought out, and two beautiful 
Spanish girls I had devoutly watched during the service 
followed hundreds of worshippers to the altar rail where 
all in turn reverently kissed the feet of the baby idol. After 
each osculation a little page followed with a towel, wiping 
off the kisses from the feet to avoid infection. Gloria in 
excelsis ! Te Deum Laudamus ! Of yore the ancient Bori- 
quenians prayed to idols of stone, clay and wood, and per- 
formed rites in their presence. My, how the Porto Ricans 
have progressed since then! Ponce's bones rest here, and 
there is a weird wax image, a **figger" our friend Art. Ward 
would have gladly placed in his show. It is of a Roman 
soldier and called the "petrified man," all tied around with 
a woolen string of tradition and romance. There are some 
old bones and a bottle of blood from the Catacombs. More 
signs of progress. 

At the hotel! hung up my stocking just as I had at 
home for half a century, and being my own Santa Claus, 
filled it next morning when I put it en. Christmas morn- 
ing! "Peace on earth, good will towards men." I was 
reading the newspapers, dated December 25th, which told 
how the different nations were preparing to get money for 
arms and armaments to wipe each other off the map, when 



92 SEASODOMS 

I heard a rumble overhead and looked out of my window 
into the sky. Was it a peal of thunder — or of inextinguish- 
able laughter of the heathen gods at this Christian comedy 
on earth? 

Porto Rico asked Uncle Sam for the following Christ- 
mas gifts : New custom houses, extension of rural credits, 
educational grants, purchase of a new bond issue, privilege 
of choosing her own governor, and most of all independence. 
In his letter to Santa Sam the Porto Rican wants to know 
why the men can't drink liquor, and the women are not 
allowed the privilege of voting ; what America's future pol- 
icy is, and how long we intend to remain here. A Porto 
Rican author told me that the U. S. had lost its reputation 
for being a "big brother" by its shameless treatment of 
Haiti, Santo Domingo and Porto Rico, which was keenly 
resented throughout South America; that we should con- 
ciliate Porto Rico by giving her independence and making 
her the mediator between North and South America. 

"Good-bye, San Juan, — historic, hybrid, picturesque, 
noisy, busy and colorful," I said as the engine pulled me 
away with my train of thought. It was Sunday, the cars 
were full of Xmas cheer, the day was bright and the air 
intoxicating. 



TOWNS AND TRAITS 

The train makes tracks through the North of the island 
among cane, coffee and fruit districts, by foolscap foothills 
to the Spanish town of Arceibo, then runs over flat lands 
to Aguadilla, proud of its spring "Ojo de Agua," where they 
say Chris, landed for water with caravels dry as camels. 
The town had recently been visited by tidal wave and earth- 
quake. We were thirsty and glad to drink any kind of 
water — so was the engine. You may eat here, too, if your 
appetite has not been spoiled by the towns through which 
you have passed and where one sees a hospital crowd of 
ambulating unfortunates covered with dust, ulcers and 
scrofulous tumors, or a set of sufferers minus an arm or leg. 
Some looked like a living erysipelas, and others as if they 
had returned scarred and shrivelled from Hell's grill. At 



SEASODOMS 93 

Aguada stand ruins of the original town destroyed by In- 
dians. The natives hotly claim that Chris, got his spring- 
water here, not at Aguadilla, and are trying to keep sweet 
during the controversy by cultivating sugar-cane, raising 
coffee and making hats. Anasco unites with these two 
towns in' having a sort of water on the brain, i.e., they 
claim that in the nearby river, Salcedo, the Spaniard, 
was drowned by the Indians to prove whether he was 
a mere man or an immortal god. He failed to recuperate 
after his ducking and in three days his carcass smelled as 
bad as any other dead body. The Indians decided the ex- 
periment was a success and went out to try this acid test of 
immortality on other hidalgos. Little wonder, since they 
had been driven to desperation by the heavy tasks imposed 
on them by the Spaniards. And when I read they withered 
many flowers of Spain's chivalry, I ask, "Who says the In- 
dians never did a good thing and were good for nothing?" 

I admit the Indian had many wicked traits — was just, 
heroic, hospitable and generous ; believed in a sky and earth 
god, and in agriculture ; hunted and fished for food, not cruel 
pleasure ; was poetic and made myths of the rising and set- 
ting sun, of the creation of the sea, the mystery of death 
and the origin of the first men and women ; was philosophic, 
living in simplicity in a palm hut ; made baskets and musical 
instruments, carved wood, and had festivals to celebrate 
marriage, the birth of a child, death, or the day when a 
child's hair was cut, a canoe launched, a tree felled, a house 
builded, or a garden made; regarded theft as a curse and 
punished crime severely. Apart from these vices were some 
notable virtues that even the bigoted Spaniards must have 
noticed, and we moderns can appreciate — polygamy was 
practised, some chiefs having 25 or 30 wives, while among 
the common people wives were often treated as slaves ; his 
secular and religious affairs were closely related ; a system 
of vassalage existed among the chiefs; the natives were 
acquainted with gold and used it for ornaments and to 
decorate their idols ; they danced, smoked and went to war ; 
they were flat-nosed, flat-headed and had poor teeth. 

The ancient Indian is supposed to have had ancestors 
who did not have the honor of being exterminated by the 
Spanish Dons. They were neolithicers and have left just 



94 SEASODOMS 

enough puzzling relics to make some people worry their 
heads off wondering what they were. Among these stone 
creations were pestles, mortars, pendants and hearts, rude 
pictures on stone, masks, amulets, and the stone collar, a 
remarkable thing in shape and size like the collar of a horse. 
It was carefully made and often decorated with artistic skill 
and doubtless took a lifetime to make, but as an article of 
neckwear it must have been a trifle cumbersome, except on 
an enemy's neck. Or was it used m marriage rites? Any- 
way, it was a heavy yoke, yet not so onerous or bad as that 
under which many people labor today. 



CURACAO CAROUSINGS 

We stole out from Mayaguez about midnight, and like 
pirates boarded the ''Maracaibo" of the "Red D" Line. 
She soon proved the R D stood for red devil and rolling des- 
perately. The Southern Cross was above us and from the 
way the ship bowed and ducked during the night one would 
have thought she had contracted the religious habit of the 
Roman Catholic countries she visits down here. *'L" was 
sick and gave up his meals to the lishes, and I surrendered 
my room to a Curacao family which had almost given up the 
ghost. For three days I had a good time between meals, 
reading, putting the piano out of tune, and watching the 
serious face of an English lady to whom I had given an 
American joke-book. 

We lay a day at La Guayra, Venezuela, putting off 
freight and passengers, and taking on passengers and 
freight, which latter consisted mostly of Mr. Gomez, brother 
of the Venezuelan President, who came aboard with serv- 
ants, wife and other impedimenta. This undersecretary of 
Satan is a fine Venezuelan gentleman. A few months ago he 
killed a man — a minor matter here. An honest Venezuelan 
would be a criminal in other countries. Like Cassius, he 
had a "lean and hungry look," had black hair and brows, 
brown skin, feverish twitch of lips and piercing eyes. In 
short, he was a most distinguished-looking thief who lives 
by looting the poor. Among the motley passengers taken 
aboard was a delectable sultana, with capricious curves. 



SEASODOMS 95 

who disliked the cabin assigned her, and asked the purser 
to share his room with her. Being a new man and not 
thoroughly acquainted with his official duties, he refused. 
Afterw^ards I saw her making overtures to other male pas- 
sengers. , She found a place — I don't know where — but I 
am sure it wasn't in my room. 

New Year's eve and off for Curacao. While the ''Mara- 
caibo" was cutting through the Caribbean, her Curacao 
negro crew was cutting capers on deck and below* They 
had tippled all evening and were now tipsy, lying sprawled 
on the decks. One of the gang took a header down the gang 
to the deck below and was uninjured. The companionways 
were littered with roaring guzzlers who hie, haec and hoc'd 
to their full content. At first they hoarsely bawled out 
church hymns, then possessed with the spirits they had 
drunk, started up their Dutch island dance, sticking to each 
other like the itch, and slobbering out the sweet strain of 
"lou-lou-lou-u-u." They had a glorious time in the glory 
hole. The pent-up enthusiasm of a year was uncorked and 
many deserted from the ship next day to celebrate New 
Year's in their own home town. If they are on ship New 
Year's day it is not unusual for them to refuse to work, and 
to attempt to run the ship their own way. As the old year 
departs it is customary to throw your old clothes after it. 
A mother and two children, whose apparent poverty had 
drawn our sympathy, were seen pitching their clothes over- 
board. One of the needy stewards rushed forward and 
rescued some of the things for himself, thinking Neptune 
had enough. 

New Year's morning we sighted Buen Ayre, a Dutch 
island with a little lighthouse stuck upon it like a Holland 
gin bottle. It has 5,000 inhabitants, is 95 square miles big, 
is fiat and arid, and looks as though a ripple would be a 
tidal wave that could overflow it. Now before us rises 
something in the sea like a slimy, submarine monster — the 
Dutch island of Curacao. The ship skirted a baked, barren 
coast with phosphate mine, then headed for Willemstad — 
the tiny, toy capital, yellow as a Holland cheese and striped 
like a barber-pole — glided into the harbor lagoon between 
Forts Riff and Amsterdam, passed the Gouvernmentshuis, 
and when the Queen Emmabrug swung open, dropped an- 



96 SEASODOMS 

chor in St. Anna's Bay. Mynheer Doctor Voosten Walbert 
Schimmelpennick, with rest for refreshments between the 
syllables of his name, came aboard, declaring Curacao was 
a free port — we later found it was in morals as well as com- 
merce — and that there were no "duties," except to sleep and 
get drunk. He quietly slipped a thermal tube into our 
mouths to see whether our spirits and temperature were 
high enough to warrant our going ashore and mingling 
with the festivities promoted by Dutch gin and girls. 

New Year's day, in the harbor of Curacao, on board 
the United States steamship "Maracaibo," I made two 
American souls happy by making them one — Miss Marjorie 
Lavelle Sparks and William David Lewis, both of San Fran- 
cisco. She had come all the way from 'Frisco to marry him 
at Maracaibo, Venezuela, where he was employed as a civil 
engineer. At the last minute, on learning that the laws of 
Venezuela necessitated an indefinite delay, he wirelessed her 
to meet him at Curacao, only to find on his arrivel there that 
the Dutch laws were even more stringent. However, with 
the consent of the captain, who was an American in com- 
mand of an American ship, I, as an American, married Miss 
Sparks and Mr. Lewis, according to the laws of God — al- 
though they had no license according to the laws of man. 
The ceremony was performed in the captain's cabin with 
his bed for a background. I told the captain he could make 
assurance doubly sure and marry them again that night 3 
miles out at sea. 

Then our bridal procession performed a "pedal organ" 
wedding march through the Dutch oven streets to the 
Hotel Americano where I played the meddlesome Mendels- 
sohn march to the delight of all but the proprietor, who 
looked nervous at the way I handled the new piano. Mean- 
while, the corks were popping, keeping time in a sort of 
Holland rhyme. I finished, went to the table, kissed the 
bride and proceeded to "drink her down." By the way, this 
is a corking good place to celebrate any time, for 'tis said 
that corks thrown into the Bay of Biscay (or whisky) float 
across the Atlantic and land here among other flotsam and 
jetsam. I paid for the best front room in the hotel and gave 
an extra dollar to the porter for bringing my bags because 
he said it was the first day of the year and he needed an 



sEAsoDOivig- o; 

extra dollar for giii. I was glad it wasn't the last day of 
the year. Truly saith the gazetteer, "While Dutch money 
is used, American, English, German and French and other 
currency goes." At each end of the hotel porch hung huge 
ornaments shaped like dice and shaken by the wind. Did 
they signify we were taking a chance to stop here? The 
w^orld over I have seen coats of arms in the form of lions, 
dragons, dolphins, etc., but never anything like this. 

' From our balcony we looked down on the Waterkant, 
and the Wilhemina paviljen with its tiny music stand where 
Queen Willy was on a bust like the rest of her subjects. 
Nevertheless, she was sober enough to keep in the shade and 
not follow the throng of inebriated girls, in bright colored 
dresses and peaked hats, who went dancing by like the 
waves of heat. Like Sterne to his nut-brown Nannette, I 
cried, "Then 'tis time to dance off," and I dived into the 
stream of girls rippling with laughter and eddied off with 
them into a room on a side street, where they all began to 
chant, drink and dance. "Make it schnappy" was their 
whiz-bang motto, and their Dutch "hops" were hotter than 
their gin. It pains me much, virtuous reader, to confess 
these Dutch nymphs were not dowered with the fatal gift 
of beauty, and so I left them unable to feel with Sterne, 
"Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows, why could not a 
man sit down in the lap of content here, and dance and sing, 
and say his prayers, and go to heaven with this nut-brown 
maid?" 

Curacao has but 16 inches yearly rainfall and the in- 
habitants are said to be dependent on rain water brought 
by schooners from the Venezuelan coast. I think this must 
be a mistake from the number of "schooners" I saw emptied 
in the bar-room. Geography says the island is arid, evi- 
dently making no account of this annual liquor inundation. 
I sipped the not insipid Curacao liqueur that made Milwau- 
kee jealous. To begin with, it is a mJld drink, but not to 
end with. It has 36 per cent alcohol and there are three 
varieties, orange, white and green. Since my lips had 
smacked and tasted Ireland's Blarney stone, I chose the lat- 
ter. Formerly it was made here from the peel of a peculiar 
orange plant grown on the island which was pounded under 
water, allowed to stand for awhile, then distilled with strong 



98 SEASODOMS 

alcohol. Sugar and rum are added to improve the flavor and 
aroma. The fruit trees of Curacao have been destroyed by 
drought, so the fruit now comes from West Indian islands 
and the drink is principally manufactured in Holland and 
Great Britain. It is easily prepared. All of this informa- 
tion should be acceptable and pleasing to my U. S. readers. 
The recipe alone is worth twice the price of this book, as it 
beats the raisin yeast cake "hootch" and kicks it out of 
sight. This liqueur has made the island more famous than 
its aloes, phosphates, divi-divi dyewood, hydes, skins, native 
lace and straw hats. 

The sailors and wassailers at the hotel were full of 
Curacao spirits — it was no place for a minister's son, and 
I left them to cross the Emma bridge from Overzijde (Otra- 
banda) to Punda, Willemstad. It is not a Sabbath day's 
journey, for the bridge is only one-fourth as long as the 
names of the towns it connects. Like the Scripture gulf 
that separated Dives and Lazarus, this narrow body of 
water divides many of the rich upper from the poor lower 
class. This pontoon bridge is little but has made a lot of 
money, for its toll is a gold bridge in the mouth of the bay, 
man, beast and beastly auto paying accordingly. It is 
cheaper to cross bare-footed though you may get splinters 
in 7our feet. If you take off one shoe, one cent is taken 
from the toll ; if two, two cents. The dead, we are told, was 
charged an obolus to cross the Styx ; here he and his living 
followers may cross free in a funeral procession. This free 
board-walk privilege is often enjoyed by tramps, not friends 
or relatives of the deceased, who take advantage by falling 
in line after the hearse. Since I couldn't wait for someone 
to die, I paid my money and walked over, directing my steps 
to the Hotel Suiza which was as ratty as a hunk of old Swiss 
cheese and with a reputation as rotten, with its drinking, 
dancing and other things going on and off. Here I saw 
some Holland police-officers fall off the water-wagon. Be- 
lieving in the orthodox Dutch doctrine of cleanliness, they 
were mopping up the streets, not with brooms, but with 
each other. A big fellow dragged out a little fellow, knocked 
him down, kicked him around the street for a while, picked 
him up by the heels, then mauled him around, using his head 
as if he were pounding cobblestones. The victim was a fine 



SEASODOMS 99 

subject for a phrenologist. A waiter came out of the front 
door and burned a red light to celebrate — wholly unneces- 
sary to show the character of the place, which could serve 
as an illustration to Wilde's poem, "The Harlot's House." 

In the narrow streets, byways and highways we were 
accosted ' by several Holland hetaira who, in the Dutch 
dialect of ''papiamento" — a potpourri of Spanish, English, 
African and Dutch — offered us better social accommodation 
at their houses than were to be found at our hotel. Curacao 
is a fine place to follow out Henry IV's expression, ''loved 
at random." But beware! Tennyson's memorable words, 
" 'Tis better to have loved and lost — than never to have 
loved at all," do not apply, for 'tis often better to do without 
than with, as sailors in many a 'lusthuis" here can testify. 

In this dark quarter of Willemstad you are lost till you 
hear the musical "chink-a-chink-a~chink," a most monoto- 
nous melody produced by rubbing or scratching a nail over 
a corrugated piece of iron or the business end of a hoe. This 
is the siren note that lures the Curacaoan to his doom. I 
tracked one of these sounds to the "Ville de Paris" dance- 
hall, clambered up a dark, steep stairway, and stared at 
about 25 couples, in various stages of intoxication, mov- 
ing about in a dazed sort of way. One girl sank down 
in a drunken stupor and was carried by her partner to an 
adjoining room where her soul became stained and crum- 
pled as. her dress. Men come to this hall to behold and 
women to be held. "Nearer my goddess, to thee," seems to 
be the sentiment of the dancer as he swings his partner 
around. She is commonly buxom, broad of hip, opulent of 
bosom, blue-eyed, with vinous lips, odorous teeth, and face 
besmeared with sweat and wine. Hume declared there was 
no such thing as a soul — one can easily believe it here. 
Other dance music was furnished by a crank-turned piano 
whose metallic notes would hardly fit Richter's definition 
cf music, "The sigh of an angel." It sounded like an ice- 
cream freezer in action. The dance, if such it might be 
called, was a very higgledy-wigg-ledy-piggledy affair. Two 
p^irls stood together in the middle of the floor and gave a 
"hip"podrome nerformance, then a "Danse de Buttocks," 
followed by a danse du ventre mo7'e orientale. Curacao is 
known for its salt deposits and I see now where much of it 



100 SEA SODOMS 

comes from — these passionately perspiring bodies. Need- 
less to say, the free and easy manners started several fights 
that were ended by the Dutch police who cleaned out the 
joint and closed the doors. At another upstairs pleasure- 
parlor I saw coarse caresses and kisses give way to cuffs 
and kicks. A jealous girl seized her fickle lover by the shirt- 
collar, ripping out oaths and his shirt into shreds from his 
back. He bravely defended himself by smashing her face, 
and when her chum objected, gave her a shove that sent her 
reeling to the floor, where she broke out crying — and her 
wrist. The caveman's idea of the close of a perfect day. 

Groping through the Egyptian darkness and coffin- 
alleys of this amphibious town, we climbed to other dimly 
lighted rooms where women were swaying to and fro in an 
uncanny can-can like phantoms over a witches' cauldron. 
No one but Rembrandt could have shadowed forth these 
uncouth coryphees. They chanted in a low monotone as if 
performing mysterious rites over a corpse. I didn't wait 
to investigate. These natives often hold dances on the plan- 
tations, the girls returning in a condition like unto that of 
the maids who attended May-pole dances in old Merrie Eng- 
land — ^to quote Stubbes: "Of a hundred maides goying to 
the woode over night, there have scarcely the third parte 
returned home againe undefiled." 

During my night rambles I noted all the seven deadly 
sins but Gluttony — he was probably snoring away in the 
homes of the rich. There is a conveniently located rest- 
house in Willemstad where those who are drunk and home- 
less may lie down and sleep instead of going to jail. 

ISLAND LIFE AND DEATH 

Flaubert says religion can supply one with carnal sen- 
sations and that prayer has its debauchery, which may ex- 
plain why the Roman Catholic church was crowded at early 
mass Sunday morning. That was a most impressive scene 
when a solemn-faced official stalked through the aisles with 
his long-handled collection-box with a bell attached to rouse 
the communicants, who are masters in the art of sleeping, 
to their duty. The majority in the island are of this faith 



SEA SODOMS 101 

which accounted for the large audience and the many who 
on New Year's eve thronged the water front before the 
Bishop's house to receive his blessing. Was it tinctured 
with nicotine ? for you must know the clergy here are most 
religious cane-carrying, white-robed, shovel-hatted, cigaret- 
smokers, although they are from Holland and their moral 
character is superior to the Venezuelan brand. The re- 
cently appointed Governor from Holland is a Roman Cath- 
olic and this has greatly displeased the members of the 
Dutch Reformed Church, who worship in a building resem- 
bling the royal palace at Amsterdam. We fell in line and 
followed some of them across the bridge to the Protes- 
tantsche Kerk with its double staircase, dormer windows, 
floating flag, courthouse dome and clock surmounted by a 
cress. The congregation was sober and starch-stiff as if it 
had been there ever since the date 1769, which appears on 
a tablet on the front of the building. Unable to follow the 
dominie in his Dutch thought, I went out and took a snap- 
shot of the edifice that shows a cannon-ball shot into the 
wall. What history had been written since that time, and 
will be, ere the hell hiss of powder and shell gives way to 
the heavenly song of peace on earth. 

Vespucci, who discovered Florida about 15 years be- 
fore Ponce de Leon, is also credited with the discovery of 
Curacao in 1469. As I glanced at the small natives walking 
the streets, I recalled his description of the early inhabitants 
as "giants — every woman appearing a Penthesilea and every 
man an Antaeus." He may have seen such, I didn't. If 
there were giants here in those days I suppose they have all 
been picked up by showmen for their side-tents. Or maybe 
the island was too small for them, and they stepped over to 
Venezuela, the Dutch Amazon, perchance, going to Brazil 
and stopping at the river that bears her name, while An- 
taeus hiked on to Patagonia, where I have seen some of his 
degenerate descendants. Today we have no moi*e gods and 
goddesses, no more giants and giantesses. What are we 
coming to, the vanishing point? I sometimes wish with 
Sterne that I had been born on another planet. 

Now for a short history lesson — skip it if you w^ant to. 
Curacao was settled by the Spaniards in 1527, captured by 
the Dutch in 1634, taken by the English in 1798 and 1806, 



102 SEASODOMS 

and restored to the Dutch in 1814. Willemstad is t?ie capi- 
tal and the seat of government for the Dutch West Indies. 
The island has not only been the retreat for the buccaneer, 
who used the Schottegat, or inner harbor, as a refuge 
C where the petroleum tanks are now located;, but was an 
exile's Elysium for such men as Bolivar and Santa Anna, 
the former having lived several years in banishment in a 
castle on the hill. As late as 1908 Castro issued a decree 
cutting off Curacao's trade with Venezuela, declaring the 
island was a nest of political refugees and conspirators from 
Venezuela. Curacao has been in the front rank for smug- 
gling. Ships annually unload twenty-five times more solids 
and liquids than the inhabitants consume, which compels 
the custom officers of Venezuela and Colombia to earn their 
salary. 

The Governor's house was guarded by two odd-coated, 
straw-hatted, gun-bearing soldiers who stood like statues — 
scarecrows rather — at his door. Sunday morning the stores 
are conveniently opened for several hours, as are the saloons 
for those not caring to spend all their time or money in the 
church. 'Twould seem the Sunday Blue Laws have not yet 
reached the shores of curious Curacao. Many of the shops 
have queer ways of attracting attention, such as a great 
globe or Eiffel Tower hung out in front. This catches the 
child's attention and its Dutch pennies, which are square 
with rounded corners. 

After a hurried visit to the jail that was empty — for 
Curacao is a "free" port — I climbed into a big green bus 
that tore through the streets like a tank in a battlefield, 
passing in rapid review a Masonic Temple (the Square is 
found in all the four corners of the earth), a Jewish syn- 
agogue — the island is the home of many wealthy Jews 
whose forefathers were banished from Portugal — ^through 
Scharloo street, with its yellow-painted, seventeenth century 
gables, near cottages surrounded by trim gardens, by Ar- 
gus-eyed windowed houses with their neat haus fraus, and 
past homes of all sizes, shapes and colors — all in great con- 
trast to the narrow, noisome kennels of the water front 
where the negroes live. On the plantation the poor blacks 
exist in huts made of tree branches and clay, the roofs being 
thatcjied with ^tyaw. A f^w holes suffice for doors ^nd 



SEASODOMS 103 

windows. On a few plantations there are windmills to 
pump water, when there is any, to spray the orange- 
orchards, if there are any. 

At night I attended a band concert at Wilhelmina Park. 
Those sufficiently sober were mar(^.hing to martial music, 
or during the sentimental pieces were seated on the benches 
making goo-goo eyes to their wenches. Music is the univer- 
sal language, so I understood it all. 

Sunday afternoon we attended a funeral. The men 
wore full dress or Prince Alberts, sat silently around the 
coffin and smoked cigarets. It seldom rains here, maybe 
once or twice a year, but just as the casket was being borne 
out to the hearse, the clouds evidently made a mistake, 
stopped here instead of going on to Venezuela, and broke 
loose, flooding the streets, so there were wet feet as well as 
wet eyes at the funeral. The deceased was not a Shriner, 
but his friends held to the ropes attached to the hearse as 
if to steady it from falling over. We fell in line, marched 
over the bridge, and paddled the streets to the cemetery, 
drawing attention from residents on both sides as if we 
were a circus parade and not a funeral procession. Many 
of the mourners were so full of "spirituality" that they ogled 
and flirted with all the pretty girls they saw en route. At 
the grave the preacher's remarks were interrupted by a 
band of drunken hoodlums who stood near and jeered. The 
cemetery attendant shook his fist and shouted to them to 
shut up, or there would be another funeral. Strange, that 
life, which is a noise between two silences, should have one 
of them thus rudely broken. I was to ride home with the 
pastor in an auto, but the chauffeur, weary of waiting, had 
departed for more festal scenes than a cemetery, leaving 
us to walk several miles to town. Gautier and Ruskin would 
have loved this island, for there are no trains on it. 

Holland leadn in education but Curacao is far away 
from her ideals. Education is not compulsory and there is 
only one small school where tuition is free. I visited the 
boys' and girls' schools where the children pay for what they 
get. Napoleon said in this world you pay for everything — 
and after footing my hotel bill I believed him. . 

We boarded the steamer "Merida" and started for 
Venezuela, but were stopped to take on the mail which the 



104 SEA SODOMS 

laudanum or booze-soaked Dutch postmaster failed to de- 
liver in time, though he knew the definite hour of our sailing. 

Goeden Dag to this Dutch Venice with ships from some- 
where and everywhere ; to warehouses and homes that look 
as if built and painted by the good St. Nicholas who makes 
Christmas toys ; to indolent men and redolent women ; to the 
happy haunt of pirate, smuggler and political exile ; to home- 
ly hospitality, love and liquor ; to this pumpkin-colored Sans 
Souci. Curacao faded from sight and became a part of the 
dreamland world of other Odysseys. 

The "Merida" floated flags in the harbor yet found it 
extremely difficult to float herself in the open sea. She was 
an unbalanced, crazy craft, and my best wish for her is that 
unattended she may go to the bottom. We could scarcely 
lie in our bunks, or stand in our cabins. Twice when I 
started out of the door I was nearly pitched over the rail 
by her roll. Outside of the officers and crew, the only pas- 
senger who didn't appear to mind it was the ship cat. 

Like the cat we came back to La Guayra, five hours 
late in a twenty-four hour trip usually made in twelve. Yet 
any port is welcome after the "Merida." 

A SEA SODOM 

"Easy is the descent to hell" — except by way of Ven- 
ezuela, at whose ports of entry one suffers so many incon- 
veniences in the form of passport vises, custom fees, red- 
tape, delay and insolence, that if the Devil wishes to sustain 
his reputation as a conductor of luxurious pleasure-tours to 
the infernal regions, he should immediately get rid of his 
disagreeable officials there. Custom authorities rob the 
traveler of time, money and patience. These sun-burnt 
bandits would steal the pennies from the eyes of their dead 
father, and body-snatch their dead grandmother to sell her 
entrails for sausage-casings. 

From boat to wharf, to train, to Custom House, to 
station, to Caracas, Gomez and his gang have got you. I 
have journeyed from Jerusalem to Jericho, and like the 
traveler in the Scripture fell among thieves, but they were 
saints compared with these Venezuelan vultures. Though 




CARIBBEAN COQUETTES 




msm. 



PUERTO CAEELLO, VENEZUELA 



SEA SODOMS 107 

1 had paid five dollars for a vise in Porto Rico for Venezuela, 
I was charged several dollars more for one at La Guayra. 
The acting American consul here said it was a steal and 
wanted to take it up with the American minister at Caracas. 
A grafting custom officer called a policeman and tried to 
have me arrested and taken off the train bound for Caracas, 
because I emphatically refused to pay him 60c for doing 
nothing. Kingsley has a chapter in his "Westward Ho" on 
''What Befell at La Guayra." Methinks I could write a 
thriller myself. 

La Guayra, founded in 1588, was the same old town I 
had visited years before, only older. There was the same 
old concrete breakwater overrun with crabs — the dilapi- 
dated bull-ring full of chickens, pigs and children — old shoe- 
store at the foot of a rough, precipitous street where you 
wear out shoes and patience — ^the same old sight of Death 
with coffin on his shoulders — same goat-footed people 
scrambling up the mountain-side— same shrivelled-up, pest- 
stricken degenerates — same cafes with fly-specks — same 
saloons with dirt, and cobwebs enough to keep Heliogabalus 
busy collecting them — same stands with dried-up, bug-cov- 
ered fruit — same churches with their old belief and bigotry 
— same lottery-ticket spielers — same shady trees in the 
plaza with shady characters and loafers on benches under 
them — same old red mountain La Silla behind the city — 
same sky, sun and stars over it — same sizzling heat and 
paralyzing odors. The only new thing was the paint on the 
old fort bombarded in 1903 by British and German fleets, 
to enforce settlements of the claims against Venezuela. Be- 
fore the days of the fort, Drake illustrated the antique 
rhyme of the man who marched up the hill and down again, 
for he walked up it with 70 men, took Caracas, indulged in 
an intoxication of pillaging, killing and burning, and came 
down to La Guayra with $1,000,000 and without the loss of 
a man. Many since have followed in his footsteps, figura- 
tively spcar.-'iig, by becoming president and getting away 
with as much as they could. Venezuela has been called an 
autocracy under the guise of a republic. It is in reality a 
revolutionary government, having a record of over 100 
revolutions. You need fear little robbery except by the gov- 
ernment, from the custom officer to the head of the bureau 



108 SEA SODOMS 

who hedges, hampers, and with legal politeness strips you 
of your investment. The most thriving national industry is 
thieving. , .?.^.i^; I 

There are some senoritas like the scenery, wild, beauti- 
ful and romantic, though there are many wizened witches, 
rheumatic, mustachioed and flea-bitten who make one sea- 
sick on land. The local enchantresses give the stranger a 
good (bad) time — as well as a choice assortment of unde- 
sirable souvenirs. It is a pestiferous port where the laud- 
able profession of prostitution is much practised. These 
moral lepers are much more dangerous than the physical 
ones in the big asylum in the outskirts. Gay girls throw 
kisses to the tenderfoot as he walks the streets — a most 
sanitary and microbeless pastime. 

I entered a girls' school where the young misses were 
learning much and not missing anything, for as a practical 
object lesson in physiology, a naked little boy had strolled 
in from the streets and was roaming about the room. Some 
of the citizens are quite devout and show their gratitude to 
God for his numerous blessings. I passed a saloon bearing 
the inscription, "Gracias a Dios" (Thanks to God). Thus 
do the simple-minded people obey the Scriptural command, 
*'In everything give thanks." 

Yellow Fever and Bubonic Plague make La Guayra 
their favorite place of call, while Leprosy never goes away. 
It is one of the most picturesque ports in the Caribbean and 
one of the rottenest anywhere. There are but few handsome 
women and I doubt whether Ojeda and his men, who coasted 
along here to Maracaibo in the first of the sixteenth century, 
were they to come here now, would care to carry off any 
females as was their habit — ^though the Venezuelan men 
would be perfectly willing to permit the most frank and 
intimate relations with their wives and daughters, at so 
much per capita — ^there is no more "free" love as in the 
past. My traveling companion, who didn't know much 
Spanish, and translated the signs 'Tanderias" (bakeries) 
as panders, and "Lecherias" (dairies) as lechers, didn't miss 
it much — ^he got the right names in the wrong places. As I 



SEASODOMS 10^ 

left La Guayra the lovely lines of the American Consul's 
poem came to mind — 

"Oh, dirty people ! dirty homes ! despicable spot ! 
Departing I will bless you in your dirtiness and rot !" 

Venezuela is a tropical country cursed with all sorts of 
insects and bugs, but the worst bug of all is the religious 
humbug. Placards about town were advertising proces- 
sions to take place in honor of Our Lady of Lourdes at Mai- 
quetia, a suburb a few minutes' ride from La Guayra, and 
famed for a popular shrine and a more popular brewery. 
In the main plaza towered a cross and Christ. It stood on 
an elevation beneath which was a chapel, fitly wired with 
electricity for Him who is the Light of the world. Religious 
pilgrimages and processions, which had been barred for 
their demoralizing influence on the people by ''granting to 
the pilgrim the grace of getting drunk, if a man, and of 
giving birth to a little Christian nine months after said 
visit, if a woman," have now been permitted by the pious 
President. I visited the noted miracle shrine where natives 
from all over Venezuela come across the mountains carrying 
crosses. There was "holy water" supposed to wash away 
all disease and sin. I turned on the faucet — the government 
insists on this sanitary provision — but it was dry, the wells 
of salvation were not flowing that day. 

At the other end of La Guayra lies Macuto where, if 
lucky, you may "clean up" yourself in a sea-bath, or a pile 
of filthy lucre at the roulette table. Tragic and comic writ- 
ers have depicted the woes of matrim.ony, but there must 
have been a few bright moments in the life of a couple here, 
for the interior of the church in which the ceremony had 
taken place was literally walled in with radiant and fra- 
grant flowers. Still, love is blind, they may not have seen 
them, or they may have had a touch of coryza at the time, 
and so have been unable to whiff them. The wealthy wights 
of Caracas come to Macuto to sport and disport and prome- 
nade like peacocks on the sea esplanade. I preferred the 
walk up the hillside several miles away with vistas of sea, 
mountain-peaks, refreshing limes and unsophisticated na- 
tives. 



no SEASODOMg 

HIGH FINANCE AND HOTEL LIFE 

English Drake robbed the inhabitants long ago and the 
modern English have followed his example. They own the 
tram to Macuto and Maiquetia, and charge exorbitant rates 
for the little ride to and from them. Yet I cheerfully gave 
my money for the view of the seabeach covered with rusty 
tin pans and bedroom utensils, and the fences made of bull 
skulls and horns. The enterprising English also own the 
railroad of 23 miles' length to Caracas, charging the nomi- 
nal rate of 11 cents a mile. Six million dollars was the esti- 
mated cost of the road, raised by the sale of bonds in Eng- 
land. It was a big feat of engineers' skill and of money 
manipulation. It is not known how much of this sum went 
into the road or fell by the wayside into somebody's pocket. 
When I offered Venezuelan money to purchase my ticket, the 
La Guayra bank refused it, just as if New York should 
object to coin minted in Philadelphia, but my American Ex- 
press checks were greedily grabbed. I bought a first-class 
ticket, and found the conductors were not only coin, but 
autograph-collectors as well. The police take your name 
and treat you as a revolutionist. It is printed in the paper 
and so they know who you are, when you start and arrive, 
at what hotel you stop, all you do during the day and night 
— even to your bath and wash-room — and when you depart. 
Our first-class coach was represented by three professions 
— Madam Warren's, a clergyman's and a drummer's. There 
were three other astonishing things on this scenic railway 
that ascends 3,000 feet to Caracas, and they should be put 
in the class of Humboldt's discoveries here. One was native 
women washing clothes and themselves in a stream, proving 
the Venezuelans do sometimes wash ; another, the high-price 
of a cheese-sandwich at Zig-Zag station ; and the third, an 
auto road on which you are charged one fare to go up and 
all they can hold you for to go down, should you be in a 
hurry to make a ship. Four per cent beer doesn't make a 
toper drunk, but the four per cent grade on this railway has 
so intoxicated travelers that they have made the ugly, bar- 
ren mountainside blossom with figures of speech, and the 
sea to equal that one of "glass" which John saw in Revela- 
tion dream. 



SEA SODOMS 111 

Caracas ! The sun had gone to rest and I wanted to do 
likewise, but where? There is not a first-class hotel in all 
the city, yet what boots it — in a capital which boasts of 
being the "Paris of South America" one must not expect 
too much. However, I went to the remains of the Gran 
Hotel I, had occupied 12 years before, i.e., it had been torn 
down and the good pieces carted up the hill and put together. 
I occupied the grand salon chamber, along with a grand 
piano, tables, vases, statuary, pictures and two beds. The 
hotel was a good choice for a clergyman, for I was the daily 
companion of actresses, and the great bull-fighter, Chiquito 
de Begona, from Madrid. The ear-mark of this matador 
was a cute little pig-tail of hair he modishly wore, when out 
of the ring, like a Sis Hopkins braid on the top of his pate. 
It meant more to him than a laurel crown to Caesar, or a 
halo to an angel. One actress had a very pleasant manner 
in her address and dress, oft coming through the dining- 
room from her bath in a gossamer habiliment which caused 
Spanish comment and consternation that made eating im- 
possible. Another buxom beauty paraded the patio with a 
pet marmoset on her shoulder which always seemed to say, 
"Don't you wash you could get next like me?" Thrice a day 
did I meet the bull-thrower. He was brilliant in the bull- 
ring but it was pathetic to see him try and stab a hunk of 
bull rump steak in the dining-room. Often he gave up the 
tough job in despair. Then I would reach over and smile, 
shake hands with him, and he would give me folders of the 
next bull-fight, which I silently stole away with and depos- 
ited in the lavatory, that had amons: other serious defects no 
distinction between "para senores" arid "senoras." 

One early morn about 2 A. M., Gran Hotel guests were 
awakened by the ululating voice of a man who stood at his 
door by the patio and launched forth in profane invective 
against the barking of a small dog that had disturbed him. 
I knew there were actors here, but I am confident none ever 
declaimed on the boards with such frenetic eloquence. 
Aroused sleepers came forth aghast and saw him raise his 

hand to the sky and shout, "Is it possible for a 

dog in a hotel like this to make such a 

noise? Is it possible to arouse little children, wives and 
mothers from the arms of Morpheus, at such a time, in such 



112 SEA SODOMS 

a city as Caracas? Caramba! Carrajo! C !" The 

dog yelped, the cat mewed, the gold fish in the fountain 
splashed their tails, the concierge cried, the guests mut- 
tered, the echoes reverberated, the stars flashed — "Is it pos- 
sible ! is it possible !" 

CARACAS ABOMINATIONS 

Caracas lies at a 3,000-foot "heir'evation above the sea. 
The nerve center of the city is Plaza Bolivar, with an eques- 
trian statue of the hero who stood for liberty, and around 
which congregate people who stand for everything. Certain 
"Carac"teristics make this a viva"city" and lubri"city." 
The climate is cool, but tempered by the "melting" glance 
of the bonita muchachas whose smiles would ripen peaches 
on a wall. 

The dapper younkers of the capital pursue their studies 
at the University, and the senoritas on the highway. Their 
"curriculum" also includes the race track, bull ring, roulette 
wheel (as omnipresent as the Victoria coach-wheel) coarse 
literature, of course, and art works, imported from Paris 
and Barcelona, as vile and vivid as the paintings of Parrha- 
sius. Even picture portraits of Beethoven and Wagner are 
made by grouping together nude portions of female figures. 

Lottery tickets are not the only things sold in town. 
Mothers come to the Plaza with their daughters for sale. 
Wantons from the suburb lupanars solicit under shadows of 
the trees, and their "Hist ! hist" is as familiar as the sibilant 
call of the'^^^es publiques in Paris, who figure so frequently 
in the tales of De Kock, Sue and Maupassant. 

At "Madame Gaby's" mansion of fornication I found 
a girl scarcely 12 years old. How shocking! But one ex- 
pects to be shocked in a city subject to earthquakes. Not 
only pedestrians, but pederasts, i.e., "maricos" or "fairies," 
haunt the streets and parks of Caracas. Powdered and 
painted, they promenade with mincing gait and ogling 
glance, marching to the music of the band and making 
"overtures" to the bystanders. The police know of this dis- 
gusting depravity, and of the bordel resorts "for men only," 
but wink at it. This is as rank and rotten as anything I 



SEA SODOMS 113 

ever saw in Algiers, or the Cairo ''fish market" where men, 
dressed as women, prostitute themselves to unnatural lust. 

In old Egypt the Temples of Isis were centers of sod- 
omy. Though this vice was common in ancient Greece even 
among her greatest orators and philosophers — "Socratic 
love" being proverbial — and portrayed on the stage in the 
plays of Aristophanes, the Athenians officially punished it 
with death. There were regular places in Athens to find 
this perversion known as the Porneia. Livy, in his History 
of Rome, castigates this heresy of love. The Ganymede per- 
vert, Geiton, is the hero of Petronius' sinister novel ''Satyri- 
con." Martial's epigrams and Juvenal's satires flay this 
moral decadence. Out from Naples I visited the island of 
Capri where the Roman goat emperor, Tiberius, hired com- 
panies of catamites for his entertainment. Caligula was a 
man-lover and Nero publicly married a boy, Sporus by 
name. Domitian forbade the prostitution of boys, while 
Christianity did much to suppress it. The orgies of Helio- 
gabalus are unthinkable and unmentionable. The ancient 
Persians were addicted to this vice, as seen in many of the 
odes of Hafiz addressed to youths. Modern Turks and Mos- 
lems are born pederasts. The student of history knows the 
infamous lives of Russian rulers, of Henry III, of France 
in the 17th century, and of Paris under the Empire when 
there were clubs and balls of sodomites. St. Paul scored 
the Romans for this sin — what an epistle could he indite 
against the Caracas "maricos" who amuse, instead of dis- 
gust, the Caraquenians who seem to believe with Baudelaire 
that ''La Debauche et la Mort sont deux amiables filles" 
(Debauch and Death are two amiable girls). This foul 
practice is common, too, among English drummers in the 
British West Indies. 

Coffee, cacao, cane, cattle, corn and illegitimate children 
are the principal products of the country. At one tinie the 
official census for three years in Caracas gave legitimate 
births as 3,848, and illegitimate as 3,753. The ratio is even 
worse in the country districts. A Venezuelan bachelor who 
hasn't a half dozen mistresses, has lost caste, and is looked 
down on; a married man is expected to run two or three 
home establishments. Love is free, but drugs are costly. A 
friend of mine in the interior had a dear motherly lady come 



114 SEASODOMS 

to him and offer her three daughters for five dollars a week. 
'Tis said Alexander the Great wanted to destroy the 
antique town of Lampsachus because of its Priapus worship 
and obscene rites. Caracas was overturned by an earth- 
quake in 1812, when 12,000 people perished. If that was a 
visitation of God's wrath on account of its wickedness, an- 
other punishment is due, for it is in the class of the ''Cities 
of the Plain"— 

"Cities of hell, with foul desires demented. 

And monstrous pleasures, hour by hour invented.'' 

Simon Bolivar is a commanding figure in South Amer- 
ican history, as is his equestrian statue in the Plaza bearing 
his name. The horse rears on his hind legs as though 
dancing and prancing to the splendid band that plays here 
several times a week, and gives classical and popular pro- 
grams. Simon fronts the "Yellow House" with a stern look 
on his face as if disapproving of the yellow presidents who 
have lived there. This statue of the Liberator is in bronze, 
but "ironic" — there are many statues of him, yet no liberty 
he stood for. Sometimes I mused on what this statue 
thought, if it could think, of the crowds of dudes perambu- 
lating about him on the mosaic pavement in their overcoats, 
straw hats, with canes and cigarets — slaves to mere sense, 
fashion and a dictator's whim. There are many night- 
hawks hawking papers, lottery- tickets, dulces and chairs to 
lounge in. When a constellation of ten thousand colored 
electric lights flashes out, you imagine you are in fairyland ; 
and in the cafes outside the Plaza you may partake of re- 
freshments, beer; wine, coffee and chocolate much more 
substantial than the diet of fairies. 



FETING THE FRENCH 

A grand ball was given at the Palace for a few French 
officers of the "Jeanne D'Arc" battleship, at which the 
wealth and beauty of Caracas was present. An ocean of 
champagne was consumed — over 7,000 bottles. Poor old 
women and children who tried to look in from the street 



Sea sodoms 115 

were rudely beaten and lashed by the police. Next morning 
after the banquet I saw people fight in the gutter for the 
bread thrown out to them from the Palace windows. The 
police are very valiant — they don't quell riots, arrest "mari- 
cos," or public offenders against law and morals, but swoop 
down on little newsboys and drag them off to jail if they 
are having a playful fight in the street. 

The day before the ball I watched the sparkling eyes 
and watering mouths of the crowd as pastry-cooks came 
along with cakes in carts, in arms and on their heads — 
pastry more attractively and artistically designed than the 
monotonous, ugly architecture of the houses by which they 
passed. Wagon-loads of finest champagne stopped in front 
of the Palace and were carried in. Long before the banquet 
that night some of the waiters were carried out so full from 
sampling the same, that they were unfit for service. It was 
rumored if such a shocking thing happened again next day 
at the ball, they would be thrown into prison. A number of 
the guests at the banquet reached their autos with diffi- 
culty, for there was almost enough hootch to float the 
"Jeanne D'Arc." There were after-dinner speeches which 
settled the stomach and let off the gas — speeches that began 
by apologizing for what was to be said, and ended by justi- 
fying the apology. At the ball the guests were so numerous 
that the floors were propped up to avoid collapse during the 
dance. The dress, electric-lighted band tower, eyes, and 
diamonds made it a very brilliant affair. But I saw an un- 
invited guest who danced, drank, ate, leaned on the bal- 
conies, loitered, told love lies to handsome women, and es- 
corted celebrities to their autos — he was there with the first 
and was the last to go out. He got in in spite of all the 
guards at the Palace entrances to keep strangers out. Who 
was he? Surely you know, and have met him at grand 
functions in your life — Monsieur Ennui. I exchanged this 
pomp for a private cafe where some city bloods were quaf- 
fing champagne with the French sailors. One of them hur- 
rahed for Washington, another for La Fayette. I asked, 
"What's the matter with Bolivar?" and they replied he was 
all right; whereupon I proposed a toast to all three, and it 
was accepted with a rousing smack of satisfaction. 



116 SEA SODOMS 

BULLFIGHT AND RIOT 

Portia told Nerissa that the Neapolitan prince talked 
so much of his horse that she feared ''his mother had played 
false with a smith." Caraquenians talk so much about the 
bull that one is led to believe the women of Venezuela, like 
Pasiphae, have fallen in love with Mr. Taurus. 

The citizens are addicted to tauromachian pleasures — 
they are bullfight fans. Street urchins were throwing his 
bullship's picture everywhere, and Plaza squares and stores 
were so filled with photos of matadors, that I wondered the 
jealous President Gomez, chief "bull-thrower" of the repub- 
lic, whose beatific face beams officially in every public 
building of the country, did not order the fight pictures re- 
moved and the fighters to prison. 

January the sixth was "Dia de Reyes" (a church "day 
of kings"), but also "Dia de Toros," for the bull was king. 
Musical and literary Caracas dotes on bullfights, so I went 
to find the mentally stimulating and morally refining influ- 
ence I had experienced in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Central 
and South America. 

At 4:30 in the afternoon I found myself in the Nuevo 
Circo, one of the city's two bull-rings. On this holy holiday 
the crowd expected better bulls and entertainment than 
usual, but the "toros" advertised as "6 Magnificos, Bravos" 
were neither, just "mucho malo" (very bad) , and "cobarde" 
(cowards) . Not even the banderilleros could make the bull 
mad — the only mad ones were the spectators. Capas, too, 
proved ineffectual. The chief matador was Chiquito de 
Begona, my table companion. He was as true with his 
sharp "espada" as a crackshot with his rifle. When Mr. 
Bull leaps into the ring, forgetting the grass and lady 
friends of his pasture, and is fighting mad, Chiquito goes 
for him and is master of all the arts of attack. He feints, 
steps aside, skips with nimble feet, runs, jumps, and after 
permission has been given, waves the red folds of the 
"muleta" in the bull's face, then withdraws the sword, takes 
steady aim, reaches forward, and thrusts it back of the 
horns, between the shoulders, into his vitals. This is the 
climax and provokes more applause than any play of Lope 
de Vega. Men send salvos of "bravos," "vivas" and 



SEASODOMS 117 

"buenas" rattling against the welkin, while lovely senoritas, 
with Madonna-like eyes, shriek with delight, clap their 
daintily-gloved hands, and wave perfumed handkerchiefs. 
Harp-playing and hymn-singing, I fear, will prove palling 
pleasures to the Venezuelan in heaven — if he ever gets there 
— without an occasional bullfight. Taurus cashes in when 
the '^cachetero" drives a blade back of his horns and severs 
the spinal cord. 

The symbol of Death is not the white horse of the Apoc- 
alypse, but several drab mules that trot into the Circo, are 
hitched to the dead body of the bull, and jerk this beef out, 
not to funereal music, but to the jazz of the arena band. 
There were other interested spectators hovering around- 
big vultures that watched the carcass of the horned gladi- 
ator as it was placed in the shed, skinned and cut up to be 
sold next day in the market. 

The old Chinese executioner who failed to "get" his 
man with the first sword stroke was punished ; the matador 
who does not bring his big game down to the mat with the 
second stroke, at least, is hooted and cursed by the crowd. 
Imagine then, when the matador, Pepe Mora, making his 
debut, and who had been advertised as "valiente," fell down, 
not only when he missed Bos several times, but literally 
when he tripped, bit the dust and the bull wiped his feet on 
him. "Bravo toro, bully for the bull," I shouted. The grin- 
ning of the mob chagrined him, — he limped to the arena 
fence, posed picturesquely, drew a handkerchief from his 
pocket and wept. His tears drew more jeers from the peo- 
ple who thought he was more of an artist with pen and 
brush than with "espada." However, Chiquito came to his 
rescue and relieved the bull by killing it. 

The next dramatis persona was a persona non grata 
bull who sauntered in indifferently. The educated audience 
knew at a glance he was unequal to the occasion, and in- 
stantly and insistently demanded a "nuevo toro." But the 
master of ceremonies turned a deaf ear to the howls of the 
populace, and what they called him wouldn't even look good 
in Spanish. When a Venezuelan grows vituperative and 
sarcastic, his mouth becomes a Cloaca Maxima, a Paris 
sewer. One sweet youth near me hurled a chair into the 
ring, along with his curses. This sign of disapprobation 



118 SEASODOMS 

induced an arm of the law to reach out with his club and 
smite him on the occiput. At this stage of the performance 
entered Pandemonium. Here, as elsewhere, the police are 
not very popular, and attention was diverted from the bull 
to the official who had struck the young man. 

Now sprang into the arena one who had waxed exceed- 
ing wroth, perdy. He strode dramatically to the box of the 
official "ayuntamiento," raised his voice and arms, and 
pleaded for a new bull. All this while the old one stood 
nearby, wondering what he wanted and why the show 
didn't go on. 

It was too late. The crowd took the part of the boy, 
and to prove their love for him and hate for the manage- 
ment, started to break up the entertainment in most ad- 
mired disorder by smashing chairs and benches, throwing 
them into the arena, and ripping up the roof and floor. Riot 
waved her enchanted wand over all, and the mob roared like 
maniacs. 

And who was the innocent cause of all this ? The bull, 
who stood still in the center of the Circo, looking on at the 
turn of affairs that had made him spectator with pitying 
eye, and on the infuriated madmen around. Was he rumi- 
nating on the philosopher's statement that beasts may some- 
times degenerate into men? 

It was growing dark. As the crowd surged through 
the gates it took revenge on the authorities, who had given 
them a small show for big money, by bombarding the elec- 
tric lights and colored glass windows with bricks and stones. 
Why didn't the police and soldiers stop them? Because it 
might have fanned the spark of riot into revolution. As it 
was, a prominent man told me it only lacked some fiery 
Danton to lead them on to desperate deeds. I escaped the 
eruption of stones from this human volcano which caused 
about $25,000 damage. 

Two days later I attended a bullfight at the Metropoli- 
tano Circo which began at 9 P. M. Soldiers and guards were 
stationed every few feet around the arena to quell any incip- 
ient riot. But it was unnecessary, everything was done in 
decency and order. Here the bull did his best to please 
everybody — one of them going so far as to rise from appa- 



SEASODOMS 119 

rent death and stagger half way round the ring before being 
despatched a second time. 

DEAD GAME SPORTS 

For embruting and dementalizing people, the bullfight 
is unsurpassed. This is the "sport" district of the city, and 
if this pleasure prove too disgusting, you may drop into one 
of the many roulette, baccarat and roue dens, take a chance, 
and lose your money and morals. To gratify his appetite 
is the noble ambition of the Caracas youth, who is an inde- 
fatigable rake. I found him in slums, as well as in higher 
circles, and wondered why, when the inmates offered so 
little artistic attraction. Through barred windows I looked 
into dives of ephemeral and still-born loves. The occupants 
ranged from girls young in sin to antique strumpets, vet- 
erans in harlotry. All of them, like the "cochero," hired 
by the hour, and all condemned to a life of pleasure. I heard 
music that was not music, saw torso contortion that was 
not dancing, and wondered how they could make a living 
with their 16th degree of mediocrity. Distance lends en- 
chantment to the view. One might as well have a tete-a-tete 
with a Fury, as with these beldames. On one of the walls, 
instead of the motto, "God bless our hom.e," I noticed the 
painted, cabalistical number "666." However, such signs 
are not unusual, you find them on the corners of the main 
streets. 

Gambling is not only a pleasure, but a business with the 
Caraquenian. Baccarat, roulette and other games are car- 
ried on from the high-toned Cosmos and Venezuelan Clubs, 
to rag-tag resorts around markets, bull-rings, low taverns 
and "posadas." To this wide-spread gambling spirit is 
added, not only the lottery drawings of Venezuela, but of 
Madrid. Like Rhampsinitus, the citizens of Caracas would 
go to hell to play dice with Ceres. 

The serpent in the "Paradise" valley winds itself 
around the race-course. A concourse of people comes to this 
hippodrome, not so much to see the horses run as to gamble 
on the race, privately in the stand, or publicly in the Paris- 
Mutuel booth. They all do it, the rich woman with dia- 



120 SEASODOMS 

monds, lace and silk fluttering about the grandstand, and 
the poor man perched in the bleachers. No matter what 
horse runs it is always safe to bet on Dictator Gomez's horse, 
for whether fast or slow, it generally comes first under the 
wire. There is a reason. One Sunday there was a near- 
riot, because, although one horse had won the race, the 
judges awarded the prize to the steed of Gomez. The races 
are a society event and I saw some of the leaders, including 
two black-robed buzzard clerics roosting near the betting 
booth. Later I met a private chauffeur, who takes the 400 
out, and he gave in sotto voce some of their private, piquant 
history. I met the Dictator's brother, a uniformed official 
at the head of this race sport, v/ho has the reputation of 
being faster than any horse that ever ran. The only thing 
that ever approached his speedy gait v/as a woman pointed 
out to me whom he pays so many thousand bolivars a 
month. His cockalorum brother, Gomez, runs to fighting 
cocks. Would you make him a lasting friend, and be re- 
membered in his prayers, send him a thoroughbred rooster. 
Gomez loves this sport and is its chief promoter and pro- 
tector, the foster-father of this fine art. In my journey from 
Caracas to Valencia I stopped at a station where much of 
the space was devoted to spacious coops for the care of this 
national bird. At Maracay, his official residence, most of 
the valuable express packages were crates of cocks, in red 
flannel sacks, shipped down from the capital to entertain the 
French sailors who were to be his guests. There are other 
marks of this "bloody business" besides what you see at 
bull-ring or cock-pit. If you are not sated with six bulls 
killed in the arena, go to the abattoir where 50 are killed 
daily, and you may have the pleasure of seeing these goring 
creatures slip and slide around in their own gore, and hear 
them bellow with pain. Delightful! Just to give them a 
little fun before they are slaughtered, the boys tease and 
torture them in a sort of improvised bullfight outside the 
shambles. The odor was ad noseam, and not being without 
a nose like About's notary hero, I sought to disinfect it at 
cigaret and tobacco factories, and then to get away from the 
nicotine and be sweet, visited a chocolate factory. Caracas 
had some good revolutions while I was here — in the cotton- 
mill machinery, but unless the workers receive more than 



SEASODOMS 121 

60c a day I fear they will cause a revolution that will stop 
the works. 

"PRIESTIFEROUS'^ VENEZUELA 

Venezuelan men are not religious — they do not believe 
in God, truth or virtue. A young man told me his life was 
better than his priest's, and he wouldn't need any services 
until he was dying, if then. As to the women, the old go 
to church regularly, and the young so long as their clothes 
are new, throwing themselves into the arms of religion with 
the same ardor as they do into the arms of their lovers. 
The clergy are devoted to their church in the spirit of Leo X, 
who said, "Since God has given us the Papacy, let us en- 
joy it." 

Roman Catholicism, the state religion of Venezuela, 
South America, is in a very bad state. All Gaul was divided 
into three parts ; so is Venezuela's fetich faith — corrupt in 
doctrine, worship and practise — which is positively rotten, 
comparatively rottener and superlatively rottenest. 

Like priest and president — like people. President Go- 
mez, who divides his state functions between the cockpit, 
race-track and palace harem, is a government usurper, god- 
less perverter, and the favorite child of Papa Pope who has 
loaded him down with enough clerical honors, toys and 
badges to last to the end of his life. 

Church and state are Siamese twins. The church re- 
ceives money and protection from the government. Union 
of church and state is unscriptural and incestuous, and has 
always had a damaging and damning influence in both re- 
ligion and politics. To use the figure of Tom Paine, who 
knew more of religion and liberty than some of his detrac- 
tors, this union engenders a sort of mule animal capable 
only of destroying, and which, in f#rm of persecution, kicks 
at other religions. 

The authorities "tolerate" Protestantism, but do not 
allow it any outward manifestations. At La Guayra, re- 
cently, the fanatic Custom House head destroyed many 
Protestant pamphlets, and by unjust fees and exorbitant 
fines attempted to rob a Protestant missionary, but was 



122 SEASODOMS 

thwarted by the U. S. minister at Caracas. Custom and 
Immigration officials are very strict for fear ideas of 
justice and liberty may be smuggled in. The city of 
Valencia is so bigoted that there is no room for anything 
but a Roman church. In the Cathedral there I read a pla- 
card posted on one of the pillars which declared that it was 
one of the "permanent intentions" of this church to drive 
Freemasonry out of Venezuela. However, the most pre- 
vailing and prominent notice in all the churches is to the 
effect that the worshippers should refrain from expectorat- 
ing and defecating on church premises. In Venezuela dirti- 
ness is next to godliness. 

In La Guayra there is a cathedral built from the pro- 
ceeds of lottery tickets. Men go to church from motives of 
gallantry, not of God. At Caracas I saw men lined up out- 
side of a church to ogle the senoritas as they came out. This 
custom is so flagrant in Valencia that there is a printed 
warning in the Cathedral admonishing the senores not to 
flirt with the girls during the service. Very wicked, of 
course, but what about the ''fathers" who make the church, 
not only a "meeting" house, but a house of assignation, of 
pollution, not prayer? Not long since in Caracas a high 
churchman was put in the penitentiary for wronging a 
young girl in the confessional. This created a sensation, 
for outside the capital the dissoluteness of the padres is so 
common as to excite little or no comment. One evening in 
church at Caracas the kind father requested those who lin- 
gered to leave, as he was closing the building. I was the 
last to go away. .As I went out I saw the shadow of a young 
woman pass by the confessional, — she remained with her 
"spiritual" advisor. 

In Porto Rico I met a prominent doctor who told me of 
a case brought to his attention he was urged to hush up — 
that of a Venezuelan priest convicted of unChristly conduct 
with one of his flock. He was ordered by his superior to 
leave on the next boat for Venezuela. The niorning of the 
second day out he disappeared, but on searching the boat 
he was found hidden in the cabin of a young girl. The cap- 
tain dragged him out, kicked him "below decks," and turned 
him over to the authorities on his arrival at Venezuela. This 



SEASODOMS 123 

vulpine shepherd of his flock can only be fittingly described 
by a Moliere, Scarron or Machiavelli. 

In the capital one may see any day armies of black- 
skirted, scoop-shovel-hatted padres, caricatures of Chris- 
tianity, smoking cigarets, carrying silver-headed canes, and 
marching down the streets to the jangle of the church bells. 
In rich vestments — not threadbare like their religion — these 
consummate cheats promenade in the cathedrals, muttering 
holy gibberish and talking magnificent nonsense. Their re- 
ligion, like some others, has a diarrhoea of words and a con- 
stipation of ideas. Their faces carry an air of beatified 
stupidity and a double chin. They have the general appear- 
ance of those Montesquieu describes, "who are never done 
discussing religion, but who seem at the same time to con- 
tend as to who shall observe it least." 

On the streets one runs across many brown-robed 
friars, who recall Voltaire's definition of a Capuchin: "A 
two-legged he-goa . .en with ignorance, filth and vermin, 
who sings through his nose inside of his monastery and 
shows himself abroad to the edification of old women and 
the terror of little children." The wisdom of the Venezu- 
elan priests is very much like that of the monk described by 
the French satirist, About, which "consisted in eating four 
big meals a day, and in managing prudently never to be 
more than half -drunk. He was, altogether, one of the very 
best monks of his order." 

Caracas has churches enough for all South America, 
and the worshippers are most devout. I found them Sunday 
at cockpits, bullfights, roulette tables, sporting-houses and 
on the street-corners buying lottery-tickets. The city has 
more churches and less Christianity than any city I know 
of. The priests hate the Masons, who have a temple here 
and a membership of 1,000, yet they are the biggest "shrin- 
ers" I ever saw. Shrines are not confined to the cathedrals 
— you see them on street-corners and in public markets. 
Religious images are tacked up at the entrance of slaughter- 
houses, cigaret-factories and cotton-mills. Shop-windows 
are full of sacred charms, and I noticed shelves filled with 
crucifixes and chamber-pots, side by side. How beautiful! 
All women wear crosses, and the crucifix is met with in the 
palace of the rich and the boudoir of the frail. It also makes 



124 SEASODOMS 

up part of the furniture of the government public schools — 
schools few and far between, 80 per cent of Venezuela's 
population being illiterate. 

What fools these mortals be ! To illustrate the abysmal 
ignorance into which the people have fallen: I entered a 
church where there was pointed out a statue of Christ that 
spoke at certain times, and the body of a saint, said to have 
been dead several hundred years, still fresh and intact. The 
beadle lit a candle, pulled a curtain aside and showed it to 
me. If seeing is believing, why, of course this proved it. 
The Indians of the country believe in witchcraft, and that 
certain trees of the forest talk about Easter time. Not a 
year ago in the island of Margarita, which belongs to Ven- 
ezuela, an old woman was allowed to die ^'without the aid 
of a physician," because they said she was bewitched. 

In one church I saw a piece of rock from the Grotto of 
Lourdes. It was encased in glass that it might not be worn 
away by the devout kisses of the faithful. I noticed one 
deluded woman osculate it in the hope of being cured. What 
a shame to waste passionate kisses on old relics ! 

The Chaldeans spent thousands of talents' worth of 
frankincense in celebrating the festival of the gold statue 
of JupiteT ; Venezuelans have money to burn daily for their 
equally pagan worship. I thought if some of the money 
were spent in the book store across the street from the main 
Cathedral to buy Montesquieu's ^'Persian Letters," a mor- 
dant satire on the church that bites to the bone, there would 
be hope for a sane, sincere, spiritual service of God. 

In the United States the Roman Catholic church has 
invested millions in the movies to proselyte sap-headed 
Protestants. The "moving" picture one could show of Ro- 
manism in Venezuela would rouse the Christian citizen of 
America to rise and resist the "priestiferous" propaganda 
which seeks to turn our country into a kingdom of darkness, 
like Venezuela, and make it the Benighted States. 

HIGHBROW NOTES 

I visited the old Cathedral and the thing I especially 
liked about it was "The Last Supper" painted on the wall, 



SEASODOMS 125 

the unfinished masterpiece of Michelena, a Caracas artist 
who died at 30. The city boasts a living artist, Tito Salao, 
whom I saw on the street and at the races. He was dressed 
like any other dandy and one would never guess his genius 
from his appearance. Speaking of artists, reminds me of 
Theresa Carreno, the noted pianist born here whom I heard 
in concert in the U. S. Her life seemed principally set to a 
poco agitato tempo. At nine, when she should have been 
thinking of a pillow, not a piano-case, and snoring sheet 
music, she appeared in concert in New York. L. M. Gott- 
schalk took pains to teach her many of his compositions. 
She doubtless understood harmony, but not in matrimonial 
life, for she was divorced three times, thus sustaining her 
reputation as a vigorous and brilliant performer. She com- 
posed the Venezuelan national hymn and a number of piano 
solos. 

Frequently as I passed down the streets I paused to 
hear some girls sing, or practise on the piano, and wished 
they would only practise virtue with as much gusto. Their 
mothers are Argus-eyed duennas, and in the words of About 
speak thus wisely: ''Keep the straight path in life, my 
daughter, and don't allow yourself to fall; or, if the fates 
absolutely decide that such misfortune shall reach you, be 
very careful to fall upon a rosewood bed." 

Let us now betake ourselves to the market which fills 
the bill of gustative content. The flowers and pineapples are 
wonderful, and you can buy a fruit or vegetable from A avo- 
cado to Z zapote. Occasionally you find an apple but it is an 
imported luxury and very scarce. The 40,000 volumes of the 
Library furnish mental pabulum, yet compared with the 
market, the building was deserted as Goldsmith's village. 
In the adjoining museum the curator is as antique and inter- 
esting as any of the relics. The art gallery has a few fairly 
good canvasses, if there was only good light to see them by. 
I found more people in the hospital on the hill than in these 
classic halls. It is conducted by the Sisters, and the most 
popular ward was for the syphilitic patients. A leading 
physician of Caracas, whom I visited one day, gave me some 
horrifying statistics. As he walked the streets he pointed 
out different afflicted men, women and children, told of the 



126 SEASODOMS 

rottenness of high, rich society and of degenerate mothers 
who tried to sell their daughters to the highest bidders. 

If one may judge of a shop by the work turned out, we 
know what to expect in the school buildings from the ''schol- 
ars" on the street. I entered so-called public schools, held 
in small private buildings, and others with larger classes. 
The teachers apologized for small classes, saying the holi- 
days interfered with regular work. I went to schools "high" 
and low where they were studying books, singing songs, 
making mats, learning to draw from casts, to cook or type- 
write — but all appeared to be in crowded quarters, the 
pupils listless and the work shiftless. There is too much 
education for the feet at fetes and balls, and too little for 
the heads. Education is not with them as with us the main 
thing, as statistics of their illiteracy prove. The difference 
between North and South America is the difference between 
our schools and educational ideals. With U. S. it is the 
essential thing, with them the least. But here the Devil 
whispers in my ear, saying the savages on the banks of the 
Orinoco act no worse than the educated civilized people in 
U. S. and Europe did during the last four years. 

Why learn to write anyway? Charlemagne and Alfred 
the Great didn't know how, and still they became famous 
and successful. As Churchill, the English satirist, says — 

"Accurs'd the man whom fate ordains, in spite 
And cruel parents teach, to read and write. 
What need of letters ? Wherefore should we spell ? 
Why write our names ? A mark will do as well." 

Caracas has many newspapers, mostly paper, little 
news. One of our sheets would accommodate all that ''El 
Universal" carried for a month. The editors are as craven- 
white cowards as the paper they write on. The press is but 
the diary of what the President and family are doing, where 
they are going and whence returning. Alluring ads of ciga- 
rets, lotteries, emulsions, quack medicines, movies and 
liquors are scrambled in with physician's ads and funeral 
notices, together with steamship sailings and arrival and 
departure of passengers. The front page is given over to 
poetical lucubrations, schoolboy essays, and emanations 



S E A S O D O M S • 127 

generally of the decadent school. While here the principal 
news I could get from the U. S. was a Los Angeles domestic 
scandal featured on the front page. You may write about 
Tolstoi or Piere Loti, but any word about politics, or the 
suggestion of one who might be a good successor to the 
President, is strictly tabu and will be rewarded with a 
prison sentence. A cartoon of Gomez, such as any nation 
makes of her public men, would be lese-majeste, a sin 
worthy of death. Glancing at these newspapers, one won- 
ders why printing was invented, yet on the train I saw a 
man spend an hour poring over their pages as if they con- 
tained the philosophy of life, death and immortality in a 
nutshell. Come to think of it, 'tis a good thing the majority 
of the Venezuelan inhabitants are illiterate and can't read 
these dailies. 



FEET OF CLAY 

At the banquet given the French officers of the ''Jeanne 
D'Arc" — some say France sent this mission hers to unload 
one of her old war-tubs on Venezuela — the first thing on 
the menu was the ''Cocktail Bolivar." When they name 
cigars and cocktails after you, you are a great man, Simon 
was born in Caracas 1783, and married before he was 20. 
His wife died within a year afterwards which naturally led 
him to think of freedom and to say her death placed him in 
the road of politics, causing him to follow the chariot of 
Mars instead of the plough of Ceres. . He never married 
again, but was one of the "great" fathers of his country, 
according to the number of his anonymous children. Like 
George Washington, whose statue is in one of the city's 
plazas, he had the reputation of being quite a lady-killer 
and dividing his time between making war and love. The 
greatest thing he did was to throw off the Spanish yoke 
from the neck of the people in Venezuela, Colom.bia, Ecua- 
dor, Peru and Bolivia, and become their president. Bolivar 
was finally rewarded by his countrym.en by being driven 
into banishment. He was betrayed by one of his friends 
and most effective aides. General Paez, who also ordered 
Bolivar's secretary, Guzman, to be shot. Yet in the recent 



128 • SEA SOD CMS 

unveiling of Bolivar's statue in New York, the great grand- 
daughters of Paez participated in the exercises. It is to 
larf ! Bolivar betrayed Miranda, one of Venezuela's "great" 
men, and Paez was later sent into exile by Guzman Blanco, 
a tyrant whom the people grew so tired of that when he 
went to Paris as a commercial drummer to peddle conces- 
sions and have a good time, the inhabitants amused them- 
selves by knocking down all his statues in Caracas. Fine 
examples of political Judases to set up as inviolable apostles 
for schoolboys to worship. Like all heroes, these statuesque 
demigods have feet of clay. The farther you get away from 
them the sweeter they are. Miranda was the first to seek 
freedom for Venezuela. Though he served under Wash- 
ington in the Revolutionary War, he was accused of follow- 
ing Napoleon more than G. W. He had amours with the 
Empress of Russia, was tried in France for losing a battle, 
later was accused of treason by Bolivar, and ended his life 
in prison near Gibraltar. Paez was a dictator himself after 
whipping the Spaniards. As for Guzman Blanco he was a 
sort of conceited czar. Castro had the morals of a goat and 
used public office for private graft. Gomez, the present 
mogul, inherits and practises some of the meanest traits of 
rise and say, "WE will make you free," and then become 
themselves the worst of taskmasters. For over a hundred 
years Venezuela's history has been a melodrama of treach- 
all his predecessors. It is the old, sad story of men who 
ery, rebellion and conspiracy, at which the world smiles 
sarcastically. Sometimes we damn the people, but they are 
merely following the examples of misconduct, venality, 
squandering and vice set by their rulers. Venezuelans en- 
shrine the memory of these men in marble form Vv^thin the 
silent death hall of their beautiful Pantheon. Bolivar, 
Miranda and Paez — a dictator triumvirate — so sweet and 
lovely among themselves in life, in death are not divided. 

I followed an auto procession to the Pantheon and saw 
the French officers place a wreath on the tomb of Miranda, 
the man their nation accused of treason and expelled from 
France. They then went to the house of Bolivar to pay 
their respects at his birthplace — Bolivar, a friend of the 
"Little Corporal" who was an enemy to the Republican 
France these officers represented. This birthplace shrine 



SEASODOMS 129 

of the Liberator looks like a jail outside with its great stud- 
ded doors and barred windows. Bolivar was born here 
July 24, 1783, of a rich family, but did not enjoy any of the 
conveniences found here today. Mosaic floors and furnish- 
ings are all modern. I am always most respectful to a 
guide, listen to what he says, and look at what he points out, 
yet I doubt whether the early Simon ever saw the things 
displayed here. However, the most interesting objects had 
nothing to do with Bolivar — I refer to the pictures of Ven- 
ezuela's ''gran pintor," Tito Salao. 

Ardent lovers of liberty, who wish to trace every step 
of the great Liberator's march, should go to the Museum 
on the Plaza Bolivar, the holy of holies, and view his socks 
and shoes. The scholarly curator of the museum, Senor 
Witzke, a 33rd degree Mason, could not conduct us around 
because he lay dead in his home, but through the request of 
an ex-minister, whom I had met on shipboard, permission 
was granted to have the Museum open and we were shown 
about by a sub-curator. He opened the windows for light, 
and removed the coverings from the glass cases that held 
the relics, and of which a writer says, 'They have been 
religiously preserved for the inspiration of the people." 
Here, as at other patriotic shrines, it is difficult to get in, 
or see anything after you do, so how or when the people 
receive "inspiration" it is hard to say. We saw many 
"Boliviana." The general was a great letter-writer and 
there are many specimens of his handwriting, and you are 
shown his writing desks, chests, revolvers, swords, books, 
papers, B.V.D.'s, hats, coats, pants, pall and coffin. Mor- 
tuary wreaths, medals and memorials from other countries 
adorn the walls. But what you see when you first enter the 
museum, and when you go out, is the sublime mug of Presi- 
dent Gomez, the man who is doing all he can to undo all 
that Bolivar fought for. Because Bolivar wrote epistles to 
George Washington and visited Mt. Vernon, it does not 
necessarily follow that one must praise everything Ven- 
ezuelan, think everything good at Caracas, look upon the 
President as a saint, abuses as principles, and approve pro- 
ceedings of a government that doesn't proceed at all. 

The worst spot in Venezuela is the despot dictator, 
President Gomez. His authority is absolute, with the ac- 



130 SEASODOMS 

cent on the "loot." He takes what he wants ; a man's per- 
sonal property, his wife or his daughter. Dark stories make 
him a modern Bluebeard. He is a moral and physical leper. 
Rumor says he sacrifices children and drinks their blood to 
cure his maladies. Gomez is the government, the legislative, 
executive and judicial branches consisting of the cockpit, 
race-track and palace harem. His personal and public 
character is so putrid that many of the people would like to 
elect him president of a guano island, Vvdth a salary in guano. 
In the land of Bolivar, the Liberator, Gomez, muzzles the 
press, suppresses free speech, has an army of spies, and has 
imprisoned some of the best and brainiest men in Venezuela 
in horrible dungeons for the crime of loving liberty. You 
may do what you please — drink, gamble at races and at rou- 
lette tables, play the lottery, attend cock and bullfights, 
seduce, kill, steal, and solicit in public plazas to Sodom sins 
— so long as you keep your hands off the government. I 
was repeatedly told that Castro, now older and sobered, 
would be a welcome exchange for godless Gomez. They 
said Castro was a brave soldier, that he rode about unat- 
tended, didn't hide himself away from the capital or sur- 
round himself with soldiers. Revolution talk is in the air. 
The chasm between rich and poor is too wide. The Ven- 
ezuelans who would like to precipitate a revolution are not 
all exiles in England and other countries. Guizot . said, 
"There is a degree of bad government which the people, 
great or small, enlightened or ignorant, will no longer en- 
dure." 



MUCHO DISGUSTO! 

Caracas is rich in spacious palaces of amusement, such 
as the Municipal Theatre and National Opera House, but 
was poor in entertainment during my visit, the latter place 
being empty and the former turned into a movie house. 
Guzman Blanco's reign was not a blank. With his magic 
wand he separated the church from the state it had robbed, 
touched a Carmelite monastery, transforming it into the 
University, and where the convent was, placed the Federal 
Palace which is. It possesses a big, beauteous, barn-like 



SEASODOMS 131 

hall, with elliptical ceiling, frescoes, and a panorama of the 
great battle of Carobobo, 1821, when the Venezuelans gave 
the Spaniards an uppercut that knocked them out of the 
ring. This is the only way I care to watch a battle, yet even 
then you risk breaking your neck in looking up at it. There 
are portraits of leading Generals who peer out from frames 
on the walls like so many cannon from a fort. These great 
friends of their country were opposed to each other, and if 
they could only come down from their frames there would 
be a fight on the old creaky floor chat would make the war 
panorama overhead seem a peaceful Quaker prayer-meet- 
ing. Venezuelan heroes were generally bloody butchers, in 
the bull-ring or on the battle-field. Let illustrious battle- 
scene artists splash their red paint on the canvas and try 
and make us laud and applaud, yet what old Tom Hood 
wrote gives a more truthful picture : "War, disguise it as 
we may under all its 'pride, pomp and circumstance,' is but 
a great wholesale executioner. Its horrors would be un- 
endurable but for the dazzling Bengal Light called Glory 
that we cast on its deluge of blood and tears ; but for the 
gorgeous flags we wave, like veils, before its grim and fero- 
cious features — and the triumphant clangor of martial mu- 
sic with which we drown its shrieks and groans. A battle 
is a butchery. Faugh! the place smells of a shambles!" 
This prison-like room is only opened occasionally. I paid my 
guide and when he locked the door I wished the war spirit 
which animated these old murderers could be shut up as 
easily. 

In Independence Hall, 1811, rang out a declaration that 
chimed with the sentiment of our own Liberty Bell in Phil- 
adelphia, when a band of Venezuelans met here and pro- 
claimed themselves free from Spain. Now couples come 
here to get a wedding license to wear the yoke of matrimony. 
This convent corner, where the Roman Catholic church had 
a graft corner on girls and gold, is now headquarters for 
civic law and order, for we find it used as a municipal court, 
police headquarters and the place where licenses are granted 
for marriages and records kept of birth and death. The 
banns are published on a bulletin bo/ird outside. Within is 
hung a part of the banner Pizarro carried in his conquest 
of Peru. Isabella's dainty fingers worked it with gold em- 



132 SEASODOMS 

broidery, the rough hands of robber soldiers bore it aloft, 
while in the name of the pure "Prince of Peace** this flag 
was stained with murder, cruelty, atrocity, lust and avarice 
which, were it able to float forever from the highest peak 
of the Andes, in the clearest air of heaven, could never be 
purified. 

I saw the prison walls, towers and guards, but gave all 
a wide berth lest the guards be mind-readers and thrust me 
behind the bars with some of the best men in the city, whose 
crime was that they had a mind and thought, a tongue and 
talked, and a pen to write for right and freedom. 

In Caracas I ran into Dr. Demmer, alias Dr. Albert, 
the famous German spy, plotter and propagandist in Amer- 
ica during the war. He told me how he escaped from New 
Orleans into Mexico, after having a hand in the destruction 
of several munition factories in the East; how in Mexico 
City he stole Ambassador Fletcher's code book which en- 
abled him to destroy a score of ships ; how he was ''shang- 
haied" on an English boat off Mexico, the captain telling him 
to look at some fever patients and then chaining him and 
clapping him into a coffin-like box till the ship arrived in 
England, where he was sent to the Tower. He showed me 
the marks of the thumbscrews on his fingers, and depicted 
the atrocities committed on him while there. The day set 
for his execution he was let out by the Mexican minister, 
since he was born in the German Legation in Mexico. He 
further related how he was placed in an English detention 
camp, how he escaped into France, thence into Germany, 
and finally to Venezuela. He is a scientist, philosopher, 
mathematician, writer, teacher and lecturer, and is private 
physician to President Gomez and his "court." He is not 
allowed to leave Venezuela, but expects to return to Mexico. 
He is planning to publish a story of his life. 

It is a general impression that with the statue of our 
George Washington in Caracas and a memorial monument 
for U. S. soldiers in Puerto Cabello, with our government's 
aid under Cleveland in the hour of need, together with the 
investment of American gold in the Maracaibo oil fields, 
Venezuela likes America and would be glad to give us a 
square deal or show us favors. The following incident 
scarcely illustrates her affection. I met a young American 



SEASODOMS 133 

salesman who came to the Gran Hotel after being ejected 
from another hotel where he had been kept "incommuni- 
cado" for a day, by order of President Gomez' son-in-law, 
whose wife imagined he had shown her some slight or in- 
sult. He was only released on word from the President 
himself at Maracay who ordered him to leave the country 
on the first ship. Why? What unmanly, un-American, 
un-Venezuelan thing had he done? Listen. He told me 
that some time before while walking in the plaza, a haughty- 
faced woman stared at him from head to foot through her 
lorgnette in a patronizing and insulting manner every time 
he passed by her. Finally, he raised his cane, placed it to 
his eye, and returned her stare. Enough ! A few days later 
when he was drinking in a cafe, and slightly under the 
influence of altitude and liquor, he was arrested and locked 
up in his hotel. A frame-up story was circulated that he 
had attempted to break into the mansion of the President's 
son-in-law. This sad tale teaches us not to go to Caracas, 
or if we do, and carry a cane, to be very careful at whose 
wife we look at. A cat may look at a king, but here even a 
king must be careful how he looks at a cat lest his eyes be 
scratched out. 

St. Anthony in the Thebaid was never more tempted by 
the devil, who offered him riches, than I was here at the 
plaza when I was approached by a man who wanted me to 
go into partnership with him and smuggle opium into Trini- 
dad. I know this was a legitimate business venture, and 
from what I had seen there, that the people would like to 
go to sleep and forget they were compelled to live there, but 
so far in my life I have successfully resisted the temptation 
to make money, and trust I ever may. 

The stranger sees many strange things in Venezuela 
— a tree that gives milk, another that burns like a candle, 
one that gives oil for lamps — strange laws, customs, pleas- 
ures, business (stores are open on Sunday, and every other 
day is a holiday), but one of the strangest things is the 
fact you can't buy stamps at the postoffice. 

The Arch of Liberty and Federation crowns a hill in 
the city. You may climb there to obtain a view of the 
mountains around, but do not go for a close-up view of the 
statuesque figures which grace and disgrace the arch, for 



134 SEASODOMS 

they are so ill-shaped and ugly they must have been made 
from actual living Caracas models. They are a beautiful 
embodiment of Schopenhauer's idea of the "fair sex," v^hich 
he calls an "undersized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped 
and short-legged race." It was near the race-track, how- 
ever, that I saw the best-looking Venezuelan woman — naked 
and standing in the top of a palm tree. She is a bronze 
statue erected in 1911 to commemorate the centennial of 
the declaration of Venezuelan independence. She stands 
on a tree of bronze which looks as well and will outlast 
Nature's palms nearby. 



OUR MARCH TO THE SEA 

But one must say good-bye to everything in this world, 
good or bad, and so one morning I bade farewell to Caracas, 
boarded a train, and soon left the Paradise valley, like 
Adam, with sincere regret. In the 9,000 foot mountains 
that wall out the busy world from this city, there are said 
to be many "romantic chasms" as fine as anything found in 
Xanadu where Mr. Kubla Khan built a stately pleasure hall, 
where the river Alph ran through caverns measureless to 
man. Passing through sugar and cane country by the 
Guaire river, we arrive at Los Teques, 3,800 feet above sea 
level, with a climate that makes it a resort for the upper 
class of Caracas society. Coffee is the leading product and 
fills their coffers with gold and cups with joy. Instead of 
natives burrowing in the hills for gold, trains of little burros 
amble on hill-tops and along the roads with bags full of the 
precious berry. Now we dash through some of the best 
scenery of this good road that ended at Valencia and in bad 
feeling between Germany and Venezuela, when Germany 
sent warships to bombard Puerto Cabello, since Venezuela 
had failed to pay the interest on the $15,000,000 Germany 
had spent in building the road. It is 112 miles long and has 
212 bridges and viaducts, 86 tunnels, and required 6 years 
to construct. The views of mountain, chasm, valley and 
cacao estates are magnificent. I sat by an open window to 
take it all in. The natives failed to enthuse, for they pulled 
down their curtains, curled up in seat-corners, lit cigarets 



S E A S O D O M S 135 

and went to sleep — another illustration of their artistic 
temperament. But they waked up at Victoria, for here 
there was something to eat. Many people only grow inter- 
ested in life at meal times. Castro had a fine farm here. 
His men loaded up on the garlic and onions which abound, 
fared forth and strongly overcame the revolutionary forces 
led by Matos. Bolivar once lived here. 

Quinta raises cane, coffee and cacao, but whether here 
or elsewhere, practical peonage exists with overwork and 
underpay. Now we near the fertile country where so many 
cattle are raised, the chief boss of which is Gomez, who has 
this concession and makes millions of money from the crit- 
ters from top of horns to tip of tail. I talked with a man 
who said he had a fine cow — Gomez saw it and offered him 
$100 for it. The poor fellow suggested it was worth four 
times that. Gomez looked at him and said, "I will give you 
$100 and come and get her when I want her." The Ven- 
ezuelan colors are red, blue and yellow — red for the rape 
and ravage of war, blue for the w^ay the people feel, and 
yellow for the streak in Gomez' character. Although a 
miniature revolution was progressing between Colombia 
and Venezuela, while I was here, the press made no com- 
ment. 

Maracay! Here the great Gomez dwells in his White 
House surrounded by spies and soldiers. He wouldn't last 
a week in Caracas. In the nearby lake there is said to be a 
boat under steam all the time so he can make a quick get- 
away, if necessary. Next we roll through a prosperous and 
populous country, skirting the shores of the blue lake Taca- 
riqua. In 1810, Humboldt measured it as 30 miles long, 
now it is but 23. Both rainy and dry seasons affect its level. 
Though apparently circled by mountains, there are times 
when one of its outlets flows to the Caribbean and the other 
to the Orinoco. Small steamers ply across this pretty pond 
23 miles long, 12 wide, and in which there are more than 20 
green islands. In Humboldt's day the lake had retreated 
more than 3 miles from Valencia, now it is 6 miles distant. 
I speculated why, until I got off the train at Valencia. Any- 
thing would retreat from here. 



136 S E A S O D O M S i 

VILE VALENCIA 

Here we are in the old capital of Valencia, state of 
Carobobo, and riding to the ''Hotel Venezuela" over torn-up 
streets. The city was once the envy of Caracas. Even now 
the "green-eyed monster" makes its haunt in both towns, 
for when I left Caracas a man warned me, saying, "Don't 
stop off at Valencia — they have the 'Economica' fever there 
and you'll be dead and buried in 24 hours." The city was 
founded in 1555 — what do we care, any more than that 
Bolivar fought here in 1814 and 1821 ; or that it is 1,800 
feet above sea level; or that it is the second city in Ven- 
ezuela for trade in coffee, sugar, cocoa, hides, rum, cattle 
and agricultural implements; or that it has a cotton-mill 
equal to that of the capital, and a newspaper of two sheets, 
called "La Lucha," mostly ads (much less hypocritical than 
many American newspapers that pretend to be printed in 
the interest of law, virtue and truth, yet are simply run for 
the money in the advertisements). 

I took the hotel for mine inn, but there was not much 
ease in it, though I was offered a hammock in lieu of a bed. 
Our room was wild, and we had a wilder chambermaid who 
looked as if she had escaped from the jungle. She was bare- 
footed and had hair long enough to sweep the floor. I asked 
anxiously for a mosquito net, for I had heard that the night 
before a soldier shot a mosquito here and only wounded it. 
The proprietor said the breeze would blow them out at night 
— it did and nearly took me with them. My front window 
opened on the plaza-like space in front of the crumbling 
theatre, in front of which stood a bust of Michelena, which 
was an affront to his memory. The only play at night was 
of shadows on the falling facade. 

Valencia was not only suffering from a lack of initia- 
tive — its tranquillity is sublime — but lack of water, though 
there was mucho vino, Ponche Crema and beer. The cli- 
mate may be salubrious, yet in absence of water the sanita- 
tion and conditions are lugubrious. It wouldn't be a Ven- 
ezuelan town without a plaza, or a plaza without a monu- 
ment to Bolivar. In the Cathedral we saw a christening, 
and a notice attacking the Masons, as well as one admonish- 
ing the men and girls not to flirt. Opposite was a German 




A LANGUID ISLAND LADY 




THE POINT A PITRE MARKET— GUADELOUPE 



SEASODOMS 139 

Club redolent of beer. Taking a street-car as a guide, we 
were conducted down to the quarters of the poor with their 
hunger and dirt, then up to the better business and resi- 
dence portion of the city. Later we visited barracks, munic- 
ipal buildings, and churches and chapels where many 
women pride themselves on doing nothing but singing. 
Could not their time and energy be better spent in cleaning 
up the foul streets ? At night I went to the bull-ring to see 
a moving picture. Bullfighting is demoralizing, but not 
more so than the cheap American films shown in some of 
the Venezuelan bull-rings and theatres during the week^ 
pictures which represent us as venal, vindictive, vicious, 
vulgar, mercenary, murderous, lustful and lawless. The 
sunrise opened my eyes on the sleepy town and illuminated 
the Calvary Hill with its three crosses. 



PUERTO CABELLO AFFLICTIONS 

I was not sorry to leave pestilential Valencia on the 
34-mile English line of steam and cog that dropped us 
down, down 1,800 feet. Some passengers incog went 
deeper still — I allude to the habit of the Valencians spend- 
ing the week-end at Puerto Cabello in the society of the 
other man's wife or daughter. The train starts, stops, jerks, 
whips around sharp curves, and performs a lot of wild 
stunts no well-behaved English train is expected to, racing 
along past streams, autos, natives ensconced in hut doors 
and windows, burro pack-trains loaded for the seaport, 
and sea beaches with wave and waving palm, till we reach 
El Golfo Triste, well-named ''gulf of tears'' when one re- 
calls the thousands, killed by war and fever, whose bones 
are said to pave the bottom, and the political prisoners held 
in the Puerto Cabello fortress. The harbor is deep, as is 
their despair. I saw them working in rags. One poor fel- 
low was toiling away stark naked am.ong the breakers and 
sharp rocks. It is reported the victims are beaten in the 
early morning during the call of the reveille to cover up 
their cries. Just as if to welcome us, there was a gang of 
convicts working on the road in front of our hotel. They 
work not only week days, but Sunday, the day of rest. The 



140 SEASODOMS 

name of our caravansary was Los Banos, which might be 
spelled Bagnios, from the wild women stopping here. "L" 
and I had a room with bath, i.e., the ocean was the bath-tub. 
I could step from my bed to the surf-soaked floor, then 
down the stone steps into the ocean. There were a few 
posts outside to keep the sharks from nibbling your toes, 
and some loose board partitions to separate you from your 
neighbors' bathing places on either side. I asked the pro- 
prietor for a swimming suit; he said it wasn't necessary, 
so I stripped, plunged in and found, to my amazement, three 
bulging beauties, who occupied the room adjoining mine, 
disporting themselves a la Aphrodite, except that they wore 
diaphanous nighties. Many modest maidens are only clad 
in a blush making a tableau vivant. As the guide-book 
saith, **The natural beauties of the place are charming." 
The surf boomed and bombarded, and at night was a house- 
breaker, pushing in through door and window, giving us a 
shower-bath and robbing us of rest. Not only were the 
usual insectivora of the South American hotels present, but 
an assortment of crabs, not backward in climbing over the 
rocks and up the steps into the room. I often started up 
from my slumbers expecting to rival that individual, de- 
scribed in one of Zola's novels, who v^as wrecked on a small 
island off Cayenne and eaten alive, furnishing most excel- 
lent crab-meat. Young squid were friendly too, and oozed 
over the doorsill to say good-morning. Happily, the sharks 
kept their proper distance. 

Opposite the hotel was a park of pretty palms and 
shade trees, where we sat in rocking-chairs purloined from 
our room and porch to watch the Puerto Cabellians gossip, 
read Caracas papers, imbibe freely and dissect the moral 
anatomy of the muchachas strolling about. When you tire 
of gazing at the chickens, wander over to the cock-pit and 
behold the roosters. 

One would never judge the Venezuelans musical from 
listening to the Puerto Cabello band. It was composed of 
eight members who could perform equally bad or worse on 
any of the instruments. Once a week, once too much, they 
collected under a tree and dispersed the lovers haunting the 
park. Yet they are kind and thoughtful, and give you fair 
warning. The deadly silence of the place is suddenly broken 



SEASODOMS 141 

by a **bang" on a drum, announcing the fact it is about to 
commence and giving the promenaders a chance to get out 
of hearing distance. Even our hotel cat threv^ a fit when 
she heard the ominous signal, and would scowl and switch 
her tail 'Twas Sunday, my heart had some of the charity 
for all and malice toward none feeling, and I crept cautiously 
under the shade trees where, under a struggling lamp, I 
could study the pathology of this pathetic gathering. I 
wondered why they had the liberty to destroy the public 
peace, while just across the bay their possibly less guilty 
brothers were behind criminal bars. About the only thing 
that could stand for the music was the music-stand, and it 
wobbled. What the selections were is immaterial, for they 
all sounded the same. The leader kept time with his cornet 
by trumpeting up and down like a mad elephant, the other 
members blew themselves, and the poor little drummer 
knocked himself out so that he fell exhausted on the rim of 
the fountain. I have heard some of the great orchestras of 
the world, but none like this. Yet they were conscientious, 
did the best they knew how, which was nothing, musically 
speaking, and so I hadn't the heart to summon the police. 

This is not the only affliction poor Puerto Cabello has 
endured. It has been bombarded, pirated, and scourged by 
yellow fever and bubonic plague (I saw an artistic rat- 
plague warning posted on some of the walls) . I was present 
at another sad affair — a wedding in the church where the 
couple was dark and the church darker, the town electric 
lights having gone out. With six witnesses they stood be- 
fore the altar facing the father, who read from a book by 
the light of a candle held in front of him by an impish choir- 
boy who all through the service grinned and grimaced like 
a little devil at the bride and groom. This may have caused 
the groom to drop the ring which rolled on the floor, as did 
the eye of the wedding guests to find it. But the Lord pro- 
vided, I had an electric flash, the ring was found, and the 
two, after a long ceremony, were made one, — but which is 
to be the one remains to be determined. This Cathedral 
had the usual notice in front maligning Masons and Protes- 
tants. I was pleased to find that Puerto Cabello has a 
Christian missionary who is not afraid to preach and print 
a little paper called ''El Mensajero Christiano." 



142 SEASODOMS 

Two fires here in four days lighted up the dark streets 
at night and added heat to the tropic day. One of them was 
at the wharf where big ships call from all over the world. 
In three days I saw dock here a French warship, Dutch 
merchantman, Italian passenger-boat, and French trans- 
atlantic liner. Puerto Cabello is one of Venezuela's chief 
ports of entry. It has a population of some 14,000. Its 
exports are divi-divi, lumber, copra, quina, cattle and cof- 
fee. Puerto Cabello means "port of a hair," and the beauty 
of the harbor appears to draw the ships with but a single 
hair. So many ships, so many sailors, so many sinners. 
On our way to do missionary work among the latter, we 
passed by a colossal bronze column surmounted by an eagle. 
This was erected to the memory of the U. S. soldiers who 
gave their lives to establish Venezuelan "freedom." The 
name of the donor is as large as of those who died. I was 
lured into an old curiosity shop, with electric globe fish 
sign outside, and everything within that sea-dogs love to 
sniff. Going down streets on whose sidewalks happy na- 
tives were strumming guitars, we entered cafes, where 
women were playfully tossing wine down the necks of their 
guests; gambling dens and seminaries of drunkenness, 
which graduate many a professor emeritus of rascality; 
dives full of galley-slaves of pleasure, where old crones 
offered to barter young girls ; and dimly-lighted dens, where 
Venezuelan soldiers and sailors were dancing with mulat- 
toes to the tom-tom beat of drum and triangle, and where 
witch-like forms in the corners muttered cries like a sibyl in 
the throes of prophecy. At one establishment a tot of a girl 
moved and jerked around in the middle of the room like an 
automaton, versed thus young in all the suggestive undula- 
tions of a superannuated sinner. 

Puerto Cabello is a city of stick-up artists, whether in 
official office. Custom House or banks. In one of the lat- 
ter a smiling teller tried to tell me five francs made a dollar, 
when I should have received fifteen, and I told him to — 
stay in Venezuela. The morning seemed brighter than 
usual when the Paquebot "La Navarre" steamed into the 
harbor to bear us away to Guadeloupe. On starting up the 
gang we were seized and put in charge of a Venezuelan 
custom official, who led us a double-quick pace about Puerto 



SEASODOMS 143 

Cabello's scorching streets. I told him I had seen all of the 
town I wanted to, but it was useless. It is as difficult to 
get out of Venezuela as to get into it, and I could not leave 
the country without a passport permission from the govern- 
ment. So I was vised at the American consul's, then after 
a melting half-mile walk introduced to a native, who made 
me swear and sign a statement I was not taking gold or 
silver out of the country. After this I was dragged to the 
municipal building where I received a passport from jefa- 
tura civil del Distrito, permitting me to depart from the 
city. At the top of this document were the legerdemain 
letters, ''E.E.U.U. of Venezuela," which I am sure stand for 
Exasperating Extortion of Usurious Usurpers of Venezuela. 
At the bottom stood the words "Dios y Federacion" — God 
and the Federation. This was about the first time the 
federation of Venezuela had anything to do with God, ex- 
cept to break his commandments. Then I was marched to 
the Custom House and asked what I was carrying away. I 
showed them my "lista del equipaje," which consisted of 
five "bultos." Learning there was nothing they wanted, 
they put their stamp of their God Gomez' approval on my 
papers and let me go for an additional money consideration. 
Then my official guide who had forced his attentions on me 
— his visage was the hue of "divi-divi" wood— thrust out 
his palm for me to divy-divy with him to the amount of ten 
bolivars, which I gave him with my ''benemalediction." We 
boarded the ship and sailed away, as happy to leave Ven- 
ezuela as Bolivar was who escaped from the prison fortress 
here by dropping into the bay, swimming away and hiding 
in a hacienda. 



"HENRI OF NAVARRE" 

Our belle bateau had been a German boat years ago, 
but was now the property of the French who gave it the 
name of "Henri of Navarre," the man who did all he could 
to check the power of the Hapsburgs. The ship itself be- 
fitted the historical proportions, in size and splendor, of 
Henry IV, called the "great" and "good," and held to be the 
greatest and most French of all French kings. You remem- 



144 SEASODOMS 

ber he signed the ever-famous Edict of Nantes, that he bore 
a charmed life, surviving eighteen attempts at assassina- 
tion, but was finally killed by the dagger of the fanatic 
Ravaillac May 14, 1610. Henry was a veteran in love and 
war, wielding Cupid's bow and Mars' spear. He introduced 
the silk industry into France, was finer than silk, and signed 
the Edict which gave liberty of worship to the Protestants 
April 13, 1598. But according to the elaborate menu card 
on this French Line, the most noteworthy and praiseworthy 
thing to be recalled in Henry's life was the fact — painted 
in striking outline and color — of his bare-bottomed infancy 
being held up by the nurse to drink a glass of the famed 
Le Vin de Bordeaux. The decks of the ''Navarre" were 
like wooden boulevards, the dining and social rooms resem- 
bled a gilded palace, the staterooms were fit for a king and 
queen, with private bath-tub for each. The appointments 
were splendid and the ship could accommodate hundreds of 
passengers, but there were scarcely a dozen of us so I know 
how a millionaire feels on his private yacht. Those who 
had the best time on board were the crew — an army of 
them in blue suits and sabots who devoured long loaves of 
French bread, quaffed many a bucketful of wine, and 
amused themselves by killing pigs and cattle on the aft deck 
and turning the hose on each other. Many were half -clad 
and showed themselves to be artists at least skin-deep, for 
they were tattooed like South sea savages with figures of 
naked nymphs in bright colors on their backs and chests. 
When we touched La Guayra again they performed the 
miracle of the loaves and fishes, giving bread to the wharf 
boys for recently caught fish — the miracle being that the 
youngsters didn't fall between the wharf and boat during 
the exchange. 



LA GUAYRA, CARUPANO, MARGARITA 

The day we touched La Guayra was memorable, for 
we took aboard Julio F. Mendez, son-in-law of President 
Gomez, en route to London via Paris, as secretary of the 
Venezuelan legation to Great Britain. He was taking with 
him his hermosa esposa, child, secretaries and, 'tis said, a 



SEASODOMS 145 

number of millions of the people's money that he might 
have a pious time in Paris. Everyone taking this boat was 
looked on with suspicion. I talked with a Protestant mis- 
sionary bound for a little town down the coast, who wanted 
passage and was told by the Transatlantic agent at Caracas 
to purchase his ticket at La Guayra. Here they refused to 
sell him a ticket though there was plenty of room, declaring 
the passenger list was made up and it would be necessary 
for him to telegraph the President of the republic to secure 
permission to sail. It was only after a lot of "monkey" 
work that he was at last allowed to get aboard. Think of 
it! They knew "L" and I were bound for Guadeloupe, yet 
came snooping around inquiring who we were, why we 
were going, and whether we had tickets which had already 
been given to the purser. They are all guilty, suspect 
everyone, and thought I looked like a man who might give 
the son-in-law a quietus with a bare bodkin, or a gentle 
shove overboard on a dark, stilly night. The Venezuelan 
government does not honor its subjects with protection but 
with suspicion. 

Instead of murdering Mendez I was friendly, felt sorry 
for him, and played the piano for him and his wife, Graziella 
Gomez, said to be one of the multitudinous progeny of the 
concupiscent President who has a reputation of rivalling 
the Elector Augustus of Saxony, in the eighteenth century, 
who had 350 children, and Casanova, who in his piquant 
memoirs tells of liaisons with 3,000 beauties on the conti- 
nent, ranging all the way from princesses to soubrettes. 
Mr. Mendez and I compared ages. He seemed surprised at 
my 63 years, said he wasn't much m.ore than half of that, 
didn't expect to live much longer, but intended to have all 
the fun he could before he died. Noble ambition ! Echoing 
the good wish of old Joe Jefferson, I gave him a ''May you 
live long and prosper." The next afternoon at Carupano 
he was met by a committee of entertainment and taken 
ashore. He lent me his binoculars to view the land and sea 
scape o'er, and this little town of 12,000 which exports cof- 
fee, sugar, cacao, brandy and pottery, and it may be added, 
in a most primitive and procrastinating manner, for we 
rode at anchor nearly three hours before one lone lighter 
of coffee and cacao was laboriously oared alongside by two 



146 SEASODOMS 

picturesque tramps. As I drew Carupano near with the 
glasses, I was thoroughly convinced the best way to know 
Venezuela was to invert them and thus put the country as 
far away as possible. ^.The fact is, the way to get a true 
view of any country is not to look through anybody's 
glasses or eyes but your own. As might be expected, Boli- 
var landed here — it would scarcely be a Venezuelan port if 
he hadn't. The occasion of his visit was a trip from Haiti 
during his fight against the Spaniards. 

Not far from Carupano is Cumana, the oldest Euro- 
pean city in South America, having been founded in 1526. 
The people we saw along these shores wore clothes, unlike 
the savage Indian inhabitants, found here in 1564 by the 
famous Sir John Hawkins, who, in the quaint language of 
Hakluyt *'goe all naked, the men covering no part of their 
body but their yard upon which they weare a gourd or piece 
of cane, made fast with a thrid about their loynes, leaving 
the other parts of their members uncovered, whereof they 
take no shame. The women also are uncovered, saving with 
a cloth which they weare a hand-breath, wherewith they 
cover their privities both before and behind." 

Before reaching Carupano our ship made a choro- 
graphical route along the cloud-begirt, sea-beleaguered, 
pearl-famed isle of Margarita. It contains 400 square miles 
and a mountain Macanao 4,630 feet high. The island's name 
means "pearl," and this sea treasure was found here 
in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today the natives get 
mackerel and red-snappers, about the only pearls being the 
purling waves. That wholesale adventurer and impostor 
extraordinary to the West Indies, Chris., discovered this 
isle. Whether he picked up any pearls or not, except in 
the purlieus of vice, I don't know. English and Spanish 
fought around this island for years, and in 1662 the Dutch 
destroyed the town of Pompatar. The logs of these old sea 
voyagers make bright fireside reading. At one time as 
many as 2,000 men fished for pearls, the annual output be- 
ing nearly one million dollars. Rude native methods were 
followed by more scientific ones with the French, who ob- 
tained a concession giving the government 10 per cent 
royalty. Very little pearling is now done. Not far away is 
another isle that did a 100 per cent business in slaves and 



SEASODOMS 147 

pearls in ye old tyme days — Cubagua, but it later went into 
liquidation when a hurricane hurried over to its relief and 
submerged it. These islands, once renowned for pearls, are 
now known for deposits of guano, phosphate rock and fish, 
articles of value, yet not such as you wear in. your ears, 
around your neck, or anywhere near your nose. 



CARIB ISLES 

It was ''Adios" to Venezuela in the afternoon and '*bon 
jour" to Martinique before noon the next day, having said 
''Are you there?" en passant to the English Piton sisters, 
who for so long a time have sat with their feet in the sea 
and their heads 2,000 feet in the clouds. "La Navarre" 
stopped at Fort de France, Martinique, long enough to be 
coaled by the charbonniere girls, and for the crew to go 
ashore and carouse, for they had not left the boat since 
leaving Colon. Then we sailed by St. Pierre shrouded like 
the dead, with the old volcano Pelee sitting up to watch, the 
moon burning like a corpse candle overhead. Dominica 
next flitted by us phantom-like, and at midnight when the 
poet says graves do yawn, the only yawning things I saw 
were the passengers gaping on deck and waiting for the 
lighter to take them to Basseterre, capital of Guadeloupe. 
The lights of the city were blinking in the waves, and 'tis 
said by travelers who have stayed here that they are often 
on the blink. Alone on the hillside stood an illuminated 
shrine of a Madonna to whom the child-like natives turn in 
waking and dreaming hours to do for them what they ought 
to do for themselves. 

Allons! and as we go the moon drops down into the 
crater of Soufriere like Empedocles into Aetna. The crim- 
son sunrise revealed Les Saintes islands, reminding me of 
the battle in this passage when English Rodney defeated 
French De Grasse, because he didn't believe in having grass 
grow under his feet. Maria Galante bowed next to us. She 
is one of Chris.' old sweethearts whom he named after his 
ship. The gallant Chris, discovered this sweet Marie in 
1493, and Drake also made her a visit. In spite of these 
rough rounders, and the wear and tear of the winds and 



148 SEA SODOMS 

waves, Marie was looking quite ''fit," considering she has 
14,000 children whom she teaches to work in the garden- 
patch of bananas, coffee, sugar, \^anilla and cacao. La Desi- 
rade, the leper island, keeps her ''procul" distance, and we 
sighted her off in the offing. Then heigh ho ! land ho ! and 
yo ho ! and like a snake our ship wound in and out between 
many islets and stopped at Point a Pitre, Guadeloupe. 

INN-CONVENIENCES 

Throwing a bon voyage kiss to the ''Navarre" in its 
transatlantic run to St. Nazaire, P'rance, ''V and I and our 
five bags were dumped in a boat and pulled by two blacks 
to the near shore. The guide-book readeth, ''the usual 
charge is one franc per passenger." Let me be "frank" 
and inform you they charge all they can get, and you can*t 
get away very far without giving in to their demands. I 
surrendered to these black hands .and black legs and regret- 
ted I had not learned boxing to give them black eyes. 

"0 rest ye, brother mariners," is Tennyson's poetry, 
but the prose fact is, where? Hotel de Paris and Hotel 
Moderne are the two hotels, yet you can't rest in either. I 
secured "accommodations" at the Mo"durn" one, and as I 
sleeplessly tossed on my bed, I remembered how at one time 
this island had imported 15,000 coolies, and I decided they 
had brought over with them the idea of Indian fakirs who 
repose on beds of spikes until their skins resemble rhi- 
noceros hides. At all hours of the night I was entertained 
by the music of mosquito bands. It is impossible to sleep 
alone, though you bar your room to the obliging douce fille 
de chambre who tells you she loves you, for the bug and his 
family have nested and rested here long before your arrival 
and will remain after your departure. My bed-room would 
make an excellent class room for one studying entomology. 
One must not expect much from the help that only receives 
60c a month (some are worth it), still I did think the 
amount should indude cleaning my room at least once every 
two days. However, I may be mistaken. Yet why should I 
complain when every morning at six, just as I was resting 
from fighting wild animals all night, and exhausted was 



SEASODOMS 149 

trying to get my beauty sleep, an adorable sorciere employed 
by this hotel came in and waked me to give me coffee? The 
sight of her elephantiasis-swollen legs gave me the shivers, 
and I pulled the sheet over my liead to escape from this 
waking nightmare. As for the much-desired, needed and 
expected bath in the tropics, the Guadeloupians must wor- 
ship as their patron saint Catherine of Sienna who never 
washed, or Catherine of Russia who never took a bath ex- 
cept in later years, and then in melted butter, for there is 
no bath. This is nearly as bad as Boston in 1845 when 
bathing was unlawful, except when prescribed by a physi- 
cian, and denounced as a menace to health, or during the 
time of Roman Catholicism in mediaeval Spain where dirt 
was deified and people who bathed frequently were sus- 
pected of being heretics and considered heathen Moors, not 
Christians. Just once during my stay I had a real good 
plunge when a Canadian banker friend took pity on me and 
drove me in his car over rough roads, that must have shaken 
the loose change out of his pockets for repairs, to an excel- 
lent beach where, unobserved and unmolested by the gen- 
darmes — for cleanliness and decency in this island are 
prohibited like a foreign plague — I swashed about to my 
heart's content. One shudders to think what might hap- 
pen if this cleansing process became epidemic in Guade- 
loupe. 

Jean Jacques Rousseau said he could not enter a res- 
taurant without a certain emotion of timidity. I experi- 
enced the same trepidation every time I went into the hotel 
dining-room, especially after I had visited the market 
where the food was bought and learned there was no show 
for a buzzard on this island, because if a cow or bull dies 
from a plague or sickness, the people rush out and fall upon 
it to eat or sell it. The waitress often kept me waiting 
while she chased around the chairs and tables a flea-bit- 
ten dog. It understood the French word "Marche" she 
screamed, but did not march. Twas a common sight to see 
both animals on all fours. While her wages were small — 
about 75c a month — this daily dog-hunt pleasure doubtless 
made her life worth living. As to the food, I can't say much, 
for there wasn't much to talk about. Near my table sat a 
fat Frenchman who, when not titillating his tongue with 



150 SEASODOMS 

wine, was delivering Dantonesque orations to those who 
came into the bar to drink punch and play cards. When 
they were full, or the room was empty, he talked to the 
dogs that wandered in, not to hear his lecture, but to visit 
the cur that trotted around the legs of his table. 



DOGS, DUNG, DEVOTION 

Not in the classic lingo of Socrates who swore by the 
Dog, but in the dialect of the Missouri negro who swore at 
the dog. Point a Pitre is a ''doggone" town. For its size I 
found as many curs as in Constantinople, and they were as 
filthy and flea-bitten. Here were dogs mangy, sore, lame, 
halt, blind, curtailed, earless, legless, and castrated ones 
"melancholy as a gibbed cat." Every day is dog day and 
night at Point a Pitre. Here, if anywhere, it is necessary 
to follow Shakespeare's advice, "Throw physic to the dogs," 
for they are a sick and scurvy lot. This city and its canine 
citizens resembles Aix la Chapelle, which Cherbuliez char- 
acterized as a very dull city where the dogs suffer so sadly 
from ennui that they piteously beg passers-by to kick them, 
with a view to having a little excitement. Dogs have fallen 
so low on this island that they are on a level with some of 
the people. They are the city scavengers and must hunt for 
their own food. How unlike their noble ancestors whom 
Cyrus so admired that four tov^ois were exempted from all 
other taxes and appointed to find food for them. To look at 
a Guadeloupe cur makes it difficult to believe the dog of old 
was worshipped in Cynopolis — that the Egyptian deity 
Anubis was dog-headed — that he shone in heaven as the 
dog-star Sirius — ^that he was the watch-dog of Hades — ^that 
he was sacrificed by Achilles on the tomb of Patroclus — 
that from the bark of his ancestral tree he harks back to 
ancient Nineveh, as we learn from excavations — ^that he 
was a warrior bold under the Greeks and Romans, wearing 
the armor of a spiked collar — that bloodhounds helped Chris, 
discover and depopulate the isles of the West Indies — ^that 
a dog named Berezillo, under Ponce de Leon, was such an 
efficient fighter that his master received for him the same 
pay and share of booty of a crossbowman — that he has been 



SEASODOMS 151 

complimented by Baudelaire in an essay who calls dogs 
"four-footed philosophers," saying there surely must be a 
paradise for them if Swedenborg maintained there was 
one for Turks and Dutchmen — that Henry II bullbaited 
with butcher dogs, furnishing amusement for Merrie Eng- 
land — ^that he was proficient in the arts of hunting, shep- 
herding, guarding and rescuing unfortunates from snow 
and sea — that he has been immortalized in art by Landseer, 
and in literature, in anything but doggerel, by Scott, Dick- 
ens, Burns and Ouida — that Lord Byron built a tomb for a 
dog — that Goldsmith wrote a poem on him — that Marryat 
made him the hero of a novel — that Rabelais wrote farcical 
dog episodes — that in Buenos Aires he has beautifully sculp- 
tured tombs — that according to Beranger, he was an escort 
to King Yvetot — that Mark Twain proves he is better than 
a human being. Of course, all great heroes in this world 
have snarling critics, and the dog has been "canned" with 
some opprobrius epithets. The Mohammedan calls the be- 
lieving Christian "Dog." The Jews despise him and regard 
him as unclean. That old curmudgeon satirst, Ambrose 
Bierce, flays him alive. If you are anxious to make a visit 
to the oculist or dentist, you have but to refer to a man's 
parentage in words that describe a dog's. In truth, the 
title "S.B." is oftener given in common walks of life than 
degrees in the upper class of university scholarship. 

The dogs of Point a Pitre have fallen into the filthy 
habits of their owners of using streets and sidewalks as 
lavatories. Walking about or touring the city one finds 
many evidences of that which caused Dean Swift to severely 
satirize the city of Dublin in 1732. Cave canem. 

The strongest perfume in this exotic isle is wafted from 
the vehicle de ordure — a dump-cart drawn by three shame- 
faced mules and driven by a half -asphyxiated driver. This 
equipage stops at every house, two stalwart Creole dames 
leave the cart, enter the door, and empty pots of ordure into 
great cans which they carry out on their head and deposit 
in the cart. The offal wagon starts out every morning at 
the time Phoebus drives his chariot. This fragrance de la 
pays never inspired Gray's "incense-breathing morn," or 
the song, "Every morn I bring thee sweetest violets." 
Guadeloupe should be named the He de Ordure. Though the 



152 SEASODOMS 

inhabitants may not be versed in classic literature, I know 
they could appreciate what Hugo said of Cambronne's 
"Merde" reply at Waterloo, that it was perhaps the finest 
word a Frenchman ever uttered. Baudelaire compliments 
his own race in the following words : "The Frenchman is a 
backyard animal ; filth does not displease him ; in his home 
and in literature he is scatophagous. He dotes on excrement. 
The litterateurs of the coffee-houses call that the Gallic 
salt." The Turkish proverb says that the more garlic is 
crushed the more strong becomes its odor, and I will now 
leave refuse for religion, and the distance is not very far 
between the two subjects, as any orthodox stercoranist well 
knows. 

Sunday morning the Cathedral was overflowingly full. 
Devout market women left their baskets of produce outside 
of the church at the base of a statue of a bearded apostle, 
thus giving him the appearance of a Hebrew huckster sell- 
ing his wares. The church facade was like London bridge, 
"falling down," and a scaffolding framework had been 
erected overhead, at the entrance, to keep the worshippers 
in a religious frame of mind by keeping the stones from 
falling on their heads. An orbicular priest intoned the 
service in a high nasal voice as cracked as the church bell 
and the building. Next to the bell, the most appealing 
thing to me was a stoop-shouldered old gentleman with a 
white cork hat, white pants, and dark gold-embroidered 
coat, who walked in, out and around with a long spear-like 
pole after the manner of a supe soldier in "Julius Caesar." 
His duty was to keep order and sobriety. Anywhere except 
here this preposterous regalia would have started an ava- 
lanche of laughter. Risum est — it is to cachinnate ! Three 
or four hundred little girls, all dressed in white, came out of 
the church like a drove of lambs, carefully guarded by 
elderly she shepherds lest they stray from the fold. 

GUADELOUPE ATTRACTIONS 

Just as in Caracas I saw the men in the bull-ring fight 
more fiercely than the bull, so here Sunday afternoon, at 
the cockpit, the scrappiest bout was among the male spec- 
tators, not only between the owners who waged a wordy 



SEASODOMS 153 

war, while their birds were fighting in the ring, but among 
the onlookers who had lost money on this combat de cock. 
They sprang into the ring, and with no interference on the 
part of the judges, and with the boisterous approval of the 
audience, proceeded to fly at each other. It became so un- 
bearable I left to save my tympanum, and for fear I might 
become a fellow maniac. 

King Carnival in Guadeloupe has a hard time of it. 
The celebration was a small and simple affair, the people 
being literally ''pleased with a rattle and tickled with a 
straw." Children were crowding >ind dancing about a rag- 
ged domino, dressed in a tattered cloak, who rattled on a 
drum and kicked up his legs encased in straw covers from 
wine bottles. A miserable exhibition, no money, no cos- 
tumes, no carnival, compared with her sister island of Mar- 
tinique. The most popular person was the Devil, tricked 
out like a bear with bangles and frippery, who, like the 
Pied Piper, led a crowd at his heels about the streets, the 
dogs racing and barking after them, glad to have their 
attention diverted from fleas and sores. 

At night I went to the "Casino." If it takes a wise man 
to be a fool, I wasn't one of the owl variety. For the blind 
or deaf, the show may have been a success. As the night 
wore on, the couples became worn out, and there was more 
wilt than lilt in the measures. Having less endurance than 
these pinchbeck performers, I sneaked out to where the 
moon was flooding the town with silver, transforming the 
tiny, tin-roofed shacks into fairy houses in front of which 
happy-go-lucky Creoles were chatting and humming tunes, 
the insects keeping time. The trees loomed like great silver 
candlesticks in the cathedral of space. In the distance I 
heard voices and saw the silhouette of a boat in which 
darkies were floating away on the waves of melody — the 
full moon always raises the tide of animal feeling, the man 
who howls and the dog who bays. The wanton breeze kissed 
my face with lips perfumed with the odor of flowers and 
trees. Lovely, and all to be enjoyed without expense. Of 
course, I know I am prejudiced — I should have remained 
in the stuffy ''Casino" with its besotted, sweating revellers. 

Le Musee L'Herminier is a little place to muse on mon- 
keys, bugs, insects, monstrosities, deformities and bottles 



154 SEASODOMS 

filled with freak foetal formations. Still, it is unnecessary 
to come here, for you can find more bugs and monstrosities 
in street and hotel. Not even the twisted trunks of the trees 
on the unkempt savannas were any more deformed than the 
Guadeloupe cripples. It was real human misery, not a 
Court of Miracles described by Hugo in Paris — a walking 
hospital, with every sort of dirt and disease exhibited. 
These pilgrims, with their bunions and wallets of woes, 
make little progress. Pangloss, the optimistic philosopher, 
never cut a sorrier figure after his amorous experiments. 
This sad company is out in the mud and sun — far better 
off than their brother victims in the hospital, where condi- 
tions are so terrible I wonder patients do not go insane or 
commit suicide. Here were fever patients on the steps and 
others on the floor or at windows gasping for air. The 
doctor hurried us by an operating-room, fit for an abattoir, 
and other pits of misery only a Hogarth could draw or 
Zola describe. Many of the patients are required to furnish 
their own drugs — I'd be tempted to take something just 
once — hemlock if possible. I saw a typical funeral with 
priests and banners coming from the church and going to 
the nearby cemetery. Doubtless the hospital inmates look 
with envy on the cortege, hoping soon to lead the procession. 

One morning the roll of a drum, under my hotel-win- 
dow, summoned the citizens of Point a Pitre, and the town- 
crier read a proclamation, not that France was at war with 
the U. S. and they should rise to arms, but that the city 
water supply would be cut off next day, and if they wanted 
water to cook, cleanse, flush, or sprinkle the flowers, now 
was the accepted time to get it. This information was free. 
If you pay ten centimes you may secure a daily of one sheet, 
printed on both sides, "Le Nouveliste," not from a newsboy, 
but from a news old woman. She is more interesting than 
anything in the paper. 

We dashed out of the city to the Experimental Station 
Agronomique with Mr. Dash, and my comment on the 

frightful roads was full of — . If the same amount 

of time were spent in experiment to improve the people as 
well as the sugar products, the history of Guadeloupe might 
be sweeter. Sugar is the chief thing here and there are 
large mills on the island, but the bottom has fallen out of 



SEASODOMS iS5 

the market and sugar-barrel, and the financial cup is filled 
with bitter dregs. At present rum has practically no sale 
in France and stocks are piling up as a result of the general 
trade depression. The banks are in a difficult position for 
business, no money existing to the country's credit outside. 
As a result the Royal Bank of Canada was recently obliged 
to suspend sales of drafts on New York. The island 
sends most of its native products to Martinique, who sells 
them abroad and thus receives not only the money but the 
name of doing things. Guadeloupe resources are owned by 
Frenchmen in Paris who do little for the island but draw 
on it. 

The Point a Pitre market is a woman's exchange of 
food and gossip. Chatter and color flow around the square, 
over the waterless fountain and under the shady trees. Hun- 
dreds of quadroons, octoroons, blacks and yellows, dressed 
in prints loud as their talk, with handkerchiefs twisted like 
Egyptian turbans around their heads, and wearing long, 
loose robes, sit on their haunches all day long, not seeming 
to care whether they sell anything or not. Girl clerks in 
the stores only make $2 a month. Judged by some writers, 
the women of 25 years ago looked good and pretty. Whit- 
tier, who never was here, says the Creole glances, were 
"archly deep" and full of "passion and of sleep." Ancient 
history ! I found no filles charmantes, no Venus de Medicis 
in the lot, and the "fair sex" looked like sexagenarians. 

"Bon" is the universal adjecti /e of the island, yet there 
were few occasions to use it except when I visited the mar- 
ket and purchased a pound of vanilla beans to deodorize 
my room and sweeten my imagination. Sunsets in the har- 
bor are almost equal to anything Turner ever painted; if 
Nature keeps on she may yet surpass him some fine day. 
The mountains and islets are so beautiful that you wonder 
why the city has not placed seats and benches on the water- 
front that one may view them. On inquiry I learned the 
natives would think they were simply put there as a public 
comfort-station, and would proceed to treat them as the 
Yahoos did the head of Gulliver. 

Foreigners should be very careful how they act here. 
Just before our arrival a white man v/as convicted and sent 
to jail on the testimony of a black girl who said he fired a 



156 SEA SODOMS 

pistol at her, and when she saw the bullet coming towards 
her, dodged and so escaped. I met an American who was 
publicly assaulted on the street by a man who hit him with 
a stone and charged him with attempting to mislead his 
ten-year-old daughter. The negro was allowed to publicly 
slander an American in the streets without police inter- 
ference, though the accused man's friends knew it to be a 
lie. A French writer has said that commerce is essentially 
"satanic." He surely had something to do with Guadeloupe 
custom officials. An American salesman informed me he 
was so bothered with their red-tape that he almost left his 
samples in their clutches and was glad to escape with the 
clothes on his back. When the American fleet arrived in 
January one vessel was without water, and though the 
French Government Line had plenty of it, it showed its 
affection for the U. S. by refusing a single drop. The boat 
was compelled to get it from a private concern. It's a 
question whether France or England has a greater "love" 
for the country which helped them "lick" the Kaiser. 



SAILORS AND WASSAILERS 

My heart thrilled under my white duck suit when I 
learned our U. S. fleet was to stay a day or two in Point a 
Pitre. In like manner vibrated the heart strings of the 
hotel proprietors, store-keepers and rum merchants. Im- 
mediately the prices on wine, beer and champagne were 
doubled. The fleet of five arrived one noon. Soon as the 
boys hit the shore they hurried to the bank and lost on 
exchange, then began to exchange what was left for all the 
liquor in and out of sight, and it seemed they couldn't slake 
their awful thirst. Others were thirsty for love and went 
where they drained the Creole Circe cup of pleasure to the 
dregs. Some few were interestd in postcards — particularly 
of the pornographic variety — or in soaps and perfumeries. 
At night streets and hotels echoed to tipsy brawlings, and 
chantings of dirty ditties that would have shocked the na- 
tives if they had been able to understand them. I chatted 
with several sober sailor lads, between whose bawdy and 
blasphemous remarks I learned their ship was a prison to 



SEASODOMS 157 

them, that they were sorry they ever joined the navy and 
v^ould desert v^ere they sure of not being caught and pun- 
ished. The next day the fleet was detained to round up 
some of the navy police stationed to keep order in town. 
After trying to bilk a few wine merchants and assault some 
girls, they were captured, had their clubs and belts taken 
from them, and were sent out to their ship under guard. 

More than ever was I impressed with our great need of 
a navy, and am much pleased with the recent appropriation 
of 396 millions to be expended in advertising the U. S. 
abroad. At last I understand the "earn and learn" ads in 
the press and on letters telling of the wonderful life on the 
bounding main, and appreciate what inspired Josapheus, 
the enthusiastic historian, to glorify the deeds of the navy. 
When mothers ask me, as they already have, about sending 
their boys to the navy, I shall say, "Yes, by all means, I do 
not know of a better school in the world to teach religion 
without the Ten Commandments." When our Marines are 
not bravely killing, they are committing moral suicide or 
enjoying a little homicide on shore. Last year at Fort de 
France, Martinique, I helped a French officer put a go*b in 
the cooler. At Panama, St. Thomas and other world ports, 
I have seen our boys and know of their uplifting influence. 
I am only sorry that the editor of the national U. S. navy 
magazine, who took occasion last year to express his sur- 
prise at some revelations I made of the moral results of the 
missionary tours of our boys who go out into all the world 
and preach their gospel to every creature they can, and 
said "he wouldn't take a chance at letting anything that 
isn't true settle on the sailors," was not here at Point a 
Pitre during the stay of the fleet. I am certain he wouldn't 
take a chance to tell what was true, for that would settle 
his chance of being editor of that magazine. In this great 
moral reform I am pleased to state the navy's influence is 
not limited to the gobs of inferior rank, but permeates the 
society of the officer class. I went on board the flagship, 
looked over the bomb bibles that were to be distributed 
among the heathen, saw the movies, drank lemonade with 
several of the genial officers, and had a long talk with the 
chaplain who had the strangest and most original idea of 
the navy I had yet read or heard of. He said too many of the 



158 SEA SODOM S 

boys in the fleet were rough-necks, drunken, dishonest, de- 
bauched hoodlums from city slums ; their motives pecu- 
niary, not patriotic ; were too lazy to work on shore and 
came aboard for a place to eat, sleep, and make good wages 
which instead of sending home or placing in the bank, they 
squandered in all the bars and brothels on the map; were 
a curse and not a compliment, a hindrance and not a help 
to the U. S. ; and that the navy's efficiency would be in- 
creased 100 per cent if its sailors were reduced to half the 
number, and consisted of conscientious, clean, patriotic, 
thoroughly American boys. Naturaiiy I was horrified at 
this revelation and dumfoundedly astonished to know that 
any man in such a position should speak so. I sincerely 
hope ere this he has been reprimanded or discharged for 
holding the Bolsheviki conviction that sobriety, purity, 
truth, honor and virtue should be expected from the men in 
our U. S. navy. 

Guadeloupe is one of the islands of the blest. Point 
a Pitre, for heat and mosquitoes, is unequalled in the West 
Indies. It has been specially favored with fires, hurricanes 
and earthquakes, in 1843, 5,000 being destroyed in one of 
the quakes. In her history War and Slavery, those two 
great inventions of man, have elevated her to her present 
**bad eminence." The blacks of the West Indies have been 
very **black"ward and white elephants on the hands of any 
nation that ever had anything to do with them. The blood 
and treasure spent on these islands have been wasted and 
worse, giving more trouble than wealth to their greedy 
grabbers. Guadeloupe is in the shape of a pair of lungs, 
has 619 square miles and a population of 200,000. Chris, 
discovered it in 1493, and in the war-dance of nations it 
has passed into the hands of the English, French and 
Swedes many times. Its products are sugar, rum, manioc, 
cacao, cotton, coffee, vanilla, yams. Basseterre is the capi- 
tal. The island is cut in twain by the Salt River. The East 
division is Grand terre and of coral formation; the West 
part Is volcanic. Statistics state that married people make 
up 20 per cent of the population, but this is a very liberal 
estimate in the minds of careful calculators. 

At last the happy day arrived — and the boat, "Puerto 
Rico," that was to bear me away. Never before was I so 



SEASODOMS 159 

thankful that ships were invented. Moses surely referred 
to some ancient Guadeloupe when he said in Joshua 8, 1 — 
''And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they r-emoved 
from Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the children 
of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over." Yet 
I am grateful to have had the pleasure of visiting this island 
of verdure and ordure, for now I am capable of enduring 
most anything, even Gehenna, or St. Paul, should I be com- 
pelled to live there. Another stop at Basseterre, then 
something happened. The good ship had a stroke of paraly- 
sis, and limped into Fort de France, Martinique, \^'here she 
discharged her passengers and went to the dock to get cured. 



WRECKED 

In the harbor lay the half-sunk U. S. steamer ''Eon- 
ham." She came here crippled from Venezuela, and asked 
for pumps to keep from sinking, which the French first 
granted, then took back, and so she sank. A bill was sent 
in for 5,000 francs for the pump, and if I rightly remember, 
this resulted in a lawsuit, the captain refusing to pay it. 
Though permission was given to enter the harbor and sink, 
the French now^ demand the "Bonham" be raised and re- 
moved. Today she lies with bow up and stern in the mud. 
A watchman had been placed on her, for the last few 
months, to prevent the land thieves from stripping her 
bare, but the watchman became lonesome, and made it a 
"bum" boat, beguiling the long nights with champagne and 
Creole lady friends. Did superstitious natives, going home 
at night from the carnival, look at the silhouette of the 
wrecked vessel and imagine there were ghosts and zombies 
on it? What a fine place and background, or water, for a 
Stevenson story. Watchman, what of the night? He was 
finally discharged for drunkenness and immoral conduct 
by the second mate who has remained to guard the com- 
pany's interests. 

The captain of the "Bonham" told me how he sailed 
into this port from Venezuela, where a storm had driven 
him on the rocks, and sank because the French governnient 
steamship line (the Transatlantic Company) refused to aid 



160 SEASODOMS 

him. He further said that for some minor matter he and 
the second mate were put in chains here, dragged through 
the streets, beaten, thrown into a room where they could 
scarcely turn about, and when they asked for water to drink, 
a bucketful was thrown over them. On their release they 
were so angry they swore they would be glad to come to this 
island on an American warship and blow it up. At the 
office of Mr. Wallace, the American Consul at Fort de 
France, I read the unjust and inhuman details of the affair 
which made my blood boil, and was pleased to know the 
matter was being presented to the State Department in 
Washington. 



DIRTY BATHS AND BOOKS 

Not far from the capital, in the bosom of the hills, are 
the Absalom sulphur baths, famous throughout the island, 
fed by subterranean streams from distant Pelee. The 
bath-house has separate rooms with small baths in the floor 
a la Pompeii. The water of life is so good that it may be 
taken inside and outside. You drink it, then dive in it, in 
this order, and not as in old Russia when the Duchesses 
washed in decoctions of roots mixed with brandy which they 
afterwards drank. One Sunday afternoon, while splashing 
about in my bath, a wave of song beat against the partition, 
the voice of a woman who had respect for the day and was 
singing Gounod's "Ave Maria." Suddenly there was an 
interruption by staccato notes, made by popping champagne 
corks, and above the sound of her voice and the fizz I heard 
a strong basso profundo oath. Later, in the corridor, I saw 
the two come out of the single bathroom. Who do you think 
they were? The woman, a femme lubrique, and her mate, 
the second mate of the "Bonham'' — upholder of morals and 
sobriety, who had dismissed his watchman for irregular and 
scandalous behavior on his ship. Subsequently at a dance- 
hall I found him boisterous and drunk. Though his conduct 
this Lord's day was not Scriptural, he was preaching an 
eloquent sermon from the text in Romans: "0 man — for 
wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; 
for thou that judgest doest the same thing." These baths 



SEASODOMS 161 

are well named "Absalom" — I visited his home in Hebron 
where he was one of the bad boys. Martial has written 
unmentionable epigrams on the Roman baths; too bad he 
isn't living, for he could gather much material in this 
roue's rendezvous. The young men of Martinique take their 
lady friends, not to cabaret, for there is none, but to the 
baths. In this sulphur atmosphere Lucifer matches are 
made. 

A few steps from the Cathedral in Fort de France you 
may purchase some very choice literature in a chic little 
shop presided over by a jeune fille who is tres joli. She is 
very accommodating, will feed you peppermint and at the 
same time cull photos and books from her collection that 
would tickle the literary palate of the depraved Pietro Are- 
tino himself, friend of Leo X. All the while she carries on 
a dialogue conversation in double entendre with her cus- 
tomer that entitles her to the soubriquet of * 'fille danger- 
euse." At this place you may procure the following religious 
works : "Les Vicieux precoces," ''Les Flagellants," "Les 
Invertis," "L'Hermaphrodite," Le Fetichiste," ''Les Vieux 
et TAmour," *'Le Grande Hysterie," "Les Femmes eu- 
nuques," ''Depravees mystiques," "Abbes incestueux," "Tar- 
tufes erotomanes," "Les Amants sanguinaires," "Perversion 
amoureuse." As lurid as this are the lives of some of the 
Martinicans, the bare recital of which would make another 
"Heptameron" or "Decameron." One girl was pointed out 
to me who had been ruined by a priest who attempted to 
skip to France, but her brother seized him on the boat and 
made him "father" his sister's child. Later the child died, 
the father was unfrocked, and opened a book-store filled 
with all the anti-clerical and skeptical works he could col- 
lect. He died, and his widow conducted the same warfare 
against the church in which she was brought up and 
wronged. The Frenchman who told me this, smoothed over 
the "father's" sin against the girl, but denounced the store 
with its skeptical books against the church as "wicked and 
sacriligeous." 



162 SEASODOMS 

NAUGHTY MARTINIQUE 

I stopped at the Hotel Renaissance that has the repu- 
tation of being the most moral hotel in the capital. It faced 
the bay and savanna so I could keep an eye on the marble 
statue of Josephine that she might not suffer such an indig- 
nity, in this city of satyrs, as that undergone by the statue 
of Minerva with the Grecian lad Charmides, as related by 
Wilde in his poem. It would seem the name "Renaissance" 
included some of the nature of that morally decadent period, 
for the dear old landlady, instead of objecting to her male 
boarders who brought in women of the street and kept them 
overnight, complimented them on their choice. I spent a 
chilly first night because there were no sheets on the bed. 
The next morning she acted surprised when I asked her for 
covering. Did she expect me to keep warm sleeping with 
someone else? 

At night you must be like the cat and see in the dark to 
avoid bumping into, spooning couples, who stand with arms 
around each other, blocking the sidewalks and blissfully 
oblivious of passers-by forced to step into the streets, dark 
as the deeds done in them. One doubts whether Dekker's 
Bellman ran across shadier life in ancient London than is 
found here, or that there were worse abominations in the 
purulent purlieus of Sodom. 

Martinique had made progress since my visit of a year 
ago. Two new, large dancing-palaces had been erected at 
great expense. It was the Carnival season and all the dance- 
halls ran in high speed. They were open day and night, 
making the town an El Dorado of depravity. Merriment 
was at its height and depth. In one of the new places 
Cicero's advice was unheeded, "Hold off from sensuality, for 
if you have given yourself up to it, you will find yourself 
unable to think of anything else." The fiery pulse of sin 
beat high. There were various dances with bizarre and 
obscene posturing, with more delirium than delight and 
passion than pleasure. All the steps at last merged into the 
Danse Macabre — 

"The dead are dancing with the dead. 
The dust is whirling with the dust." 



SEASODOMS 163 

A sea captain, just in from Marseilles, remarked that 
the Martinicans acted worse in public than the girls in 
France in houses of ill-fame. Signs of disorder were every- 
where in this island dance hall — some on the wall giving 
warning that revellers who grew disorderly would be 
ejected.. Yet none were, for ^11 were perfectly proper, wig- 
gling, writhing, wriggling, whirling about in the ball-room 
with lights out, in repulsive, convulsive madness. Upstairs 
frenzied females jumped up and down on the tables, hoot- 
ing and howling, while in private wine-rooms demoiselles 
damnees were dragged in drunk by their male companions, 
and behind closed doors attempted to please after the man- 
ner of Kallisto, the heroine of Louys' "A New Pleasure." 
With Balzac, they believe that Debauchery, like poetry, is 
a fine art. 

From bal masque these witch Sabbatarians pour into 
the streets, with faces flushed as the early dawn, and behind 
a band of frantic musicians sway and swirl along in a hor- 
rid, torrid gallop infernal of rebounding flesh — singing 
ribald chansons — arrayed in carnival costumes like Machi- 
avelli's chorus of demons who preceded the carnival proces- 
sions in Florence, chanting — 

''And we, while the glad season spreads 
The feast and dance, are with you now. 
And must with you remain. 
To foster grief and pain. 

And plague you with fresh woes, and crimes that bring 
forth woe." 

At this Saturnalian season one wonders why the obscene 
comedies of Aristophanes at the Dionysian festivals, or 
Machiavelli's ''Mandragola" and **Clizia" presented at the 
carnival of Bologna in 1526, would not be acceptable. 

Fortunately my Martinique friend, Mac Bournie, was 
in town, as a year ago. He gave me a wild whirl in his car 
to see cities, and go to bathe at different beaches. At 
Lamentin some natives suspected "L" and me with our 
kodaks, and openly accused us of taking pictures to draw 
plans to facilitate the impending conquest of the island with 
U. S. troops. 



.164 SEA SODOMS 

At Fort de France I met a writer sent out by the French 
government to collect material for an official book on the 
island. He wrote me a note saying he would "like to ex- 
change ideas." Despite the fact of poor French exchange, 
and that my ideas as embodied in my last year's book on the 
Caribbean would probably h:ave but little attraction and 
not be at all flattering, I went to meet him at the Hotel de 
la Paix, where Mac was glad to act as interpreter. The 
hotel name of "peace" semed odd because the hostelry 
housed an American captain and vixen wife who waged 
war day and night. "Hotel de la Guerre" would have been 
a more fitting apellation. Like the heroes of Homer they 
sassed each other, and words were not the only things that 
passed between them. The captain showed me his hotel 
bill — the word "paix" might have been spelled and pro- 
nounced "pay." Speaking of hotels reminds me of the ten- 
derfoot here who asked how much the rooms were at the 
Hotel de Ville. 

Millionaire Morgan's yacht, "The Corsair," nosed into 
port one day. My mind went back to the time the pirates 
sailed here and made themselves at home. They did fairly 
well and managed to make a humble living, but only think 
what they might have done with modern methods. What 
was old Port Royal to Wall St., New York. Surely, brother 
Jasper, "the world do move." But — page the elevator boy 
.- — are we going up or down? 

The islanders had reverted to savagery in their drink- 
ing, dancing and debauchery, and if St. Pierre was de- 
stroyed in 1902 by the volcano Pelee on account of its wick- 
edness, I feared another eruption was imminent, and so 
wanted to get away. This was impossible since boats were 
booked three months ahead. But across this gloomy pros- 
pect beamed the light of a crescent pin worn by a Shriner, 
who said, "Hello, what are you doing here?" I told him 
my dilemma. The Noble was from 'Frisco, his name was 
John Percival, and he was the captain of the U. S. Shipping 
Board freighter "Moosehausjc" riding at anchor in the bay. 
He told me he would have us signied as "able-bodied sea- 
men" on his ship. This he did. 



SEASODOMS 165 

BEFORE THE MAST 

Adieu Martinique, isle consecrated to Venus Pandemos. 
The "Moosehausic" crew was made up of well-behaved 
young men — one had spent several days in the Fort de 
France jail for attacking the dignity of a gendarme with a 
chunk of coal, while two-thirds of them were painfully re- 
calling the Scripture, "The pleasures of sin are but for a 
season." Three or four days out several viveurs made a 
rathskiellar of the engine-room, which ended in one of the 
leaders- being gently restrained with handcuffs and put into 
dry storage. A few of the far-seeing ones had made a se- 
lection and collection of choice wines and liquors in Mar- 
tinique which they smuggled aboard and stowed in the lock- 
ers, and to which they frequently repaired. Our captain 
did not want them to become dipsomaniacs, and so one 
m.orning 19 bottles of cognac and rum were brought on 
deck. He stood at the gang, and as the chief engineer 
handed them to him, he hurled them against the side of the 
ship with a crash and splash, thus giving the **Moosehausic" 
a more glorious christening than she ever had. This looks 
like ^'wasteful and ridiculous excess," but it is a Shipping 
Board boat and no one is permitted to drink on it — openly. 
The craft was built in Newark, N. J., where I was born, and 
as a matter of course was first-class every way in size, 
capacity, shape and speed. From the captain on the bridge 
to the chief engineer below deck, she was America A No. 1, 
and you may know all that means by taking a trip on her, 
as we did, in many respects the finest during 25 years of 
ocean travel. Venus was the captain's and mates' guiding 
star. The captain was a raconteur whose sentimental jour- 
neys around the globe were equal to anything Sterne or 
Maupassant have written. This ship worked no hardship, 
it was a big family affair. Signed as an able-bodied sea- 
man, my arduous task was to polish the steam of the whis- 
tle, pour ice-water at the captain's table, and tell stories to 
the ship officers. While necessarily the quarters of the 
officers and crew were different, the food was the same, and 
for variety and amount, three times a day and on the side- 
board by night, it almost tempted me to change my profes- 
sion and become an epicure the rest of my life, and so 



166 SEASODOMS 

illustrate the philosopher's definition that man is nothing 
but a digesting apparatus. 

Out from Jucaro, Cuba, there are many keys, yet they 
don't let you into anything but trouble, with their shallow 
soundings, unless you have a pilot. The "Moosehausic" be- 
came frightened and whistled for one, that is, one of the 
fishermen who cruise about in sail-boats. None came, so 
the captain and mate cautiously sounded our way through 
water between 18 and 24 feet deep. The isles were lovely, 
as were the coral sands and silvery fish beneath us, still I 
fear the captain did not appreciate it, and probably ques- 
tioned the Creator's wisdom in manufacturing so many 
islands around this coast. We anchored six miles from 
Jucaro, and from Friday afternoon till Monday noon loafed, 
lolled and waited for the doctor who never came. Had Job 
been one of our party methinks he would have fractured 
his reputation for patience and piety and uttered a few 
"cuss" words. Saturday, Feb. 12th, we prisoners on ship- 
board celebrated the birthday of the world's greatest Eman- 
cipator, Lincoln, with picture, flag, lemonade and Lincoln 
stories. Monday noon the agent arrived from Jucaro with 
the news that the doctor could not be found, and with a pilot 
who took us about 15 miles away to Boca Chica, where we 
were 0. K.'d by a young physician from a sugar-mill ready 
to load the ship with sugar and send her on her way. That 
night two custom inspectors came aboard to see that no 
booze was smuggled to our crew from the sugar-lighters. 
Like all good watchmen, the first thing they wanted to do 
was to go asleep. They complained of the quarters assigned 
them below with the crew, and threatened to tie up the boat. 
The captain smiled, and gave orders to make them "sick," 
by placing them in the hospital on the upper deck, the floor 
of which was the ceiling of the cook's galley. Then he 
smiled again and ordered second mate Finn to finish their 
complaint by sneaking up in the dark, before they went to 
bed, and nailing shut the windows so there would be no 
breeze. Then thrice smiled he when chief engineer New- 
combe went above and turned on the heat. And still yet 
again he smiled when he ordered the cook not to let the fire 
go out in the kitchen. Ordinarily, the hospital floor would 
serve as a gridiron for heretics in the Middle Ages, and any 



SEASODOMS 167 

foolish cockroach who ventured across it was fried and 
dried. Then imagine what it was, when like Nebuchadnez- 
zar's furnace it was heated seven times hotter than was 
wont. 



CUBAN TOWNS 

Captain Percival, *'L" and I left for Jucaro early next 
morning — before the cutsom officers were up. I trust they 
enjoyed their night's rest and sweated out some of their 
Cuban guile and bile. The agent's launch carried us safely 
to Jucaro. Wast thou ever here, traveled reader, or didst, 
belike, hear of this town? I wot not. Thou wilt not find 
its many attractions enumerated in any guide-book. Be- 
tween worn-out, ruined sail-boats, we entered a small slip 
and then started up town. I was pleased to observe the 
originality of the petite plaza that had no band-stand or 
statue, and that the chickens promenading there were of 
the feathered variety. Our right to walk on the narrow 
sidewalks was vigorously disputed by an amplitudinous, 
motherly sow taking a quiet siesta with her family that lit- 
tered the way. Priam had many sons, so has Mr. Perez, 
and they own and run the business of Jucaro. The city has 
no church — and the biped inhabitants were most happy in 
their thatch huts. The ferro-carril bumped us to Ciego de 
Avilla, and the speed recalled the railroad line, "Passengers 
will please not pick flowers along the way while the train 
is in motion." This is a *'boom" town and the streets, stores 
and public buildings should have some Bret Harte write 
them up. One smiles at the big, boorish, cowboy-hatted 
men striding down the wind-swept streets, but what do they 
care so long as Fortune smiles on them. Heine satirized 
the citizens of Hamburg, comparing them to so many pieces 
of coin rolling through the streets ; here it is almost literally 
true, for you see the Ciego de Avillains wearing ten and 
twenty-dollar gold pieces for belt-buckles, stick-pins and 
watch-fobs. They supposed I was in this class, and at the 
hotel, barber shop and in auto-buss I was shorn of super- 
fluous hair and change. I picked up a newspaper. I knew 
that death followed disease in life, yet was not quite pre- 



168 SEASODOMS 

pared to see a vile venereal disease ad above a public obitu- 
ary. When the v^ind blew my hat off I v^as in a mood to 
collect an army and v^age war against it, like the people 
spoken of by Herodotus who carried arms against the South 
wind. For so small a town the segregated district was un- 
usually large, and sitting by windows and open doors were 
many bedizened dames who combined business and pleasure, 
but not beauty. It is their duty to suck fire from veins and 
pour poison there in its stead. The circus blew into town 
with its bare-back riders and exponents of talents and 
tights, yet the best of friends must part, and we adios'd 
them at the depot. 

The Santiago Snail Express that had crawled across 
the island with us four years ago, and was now quite likely 
making its return trip, gave ample time to get seated, and 
with it we slowly left Jucaro. Shakespeare says, "Sleep no 
more, • Macbeth doth murder sleep," but Mac had nothing 
on this murderous train. Napoleon napped on horseback, 
yet it would require a greater than he to sleep on this iron 
nightmare that jerked us fore and aft and pitched us up 
and down all night. You know how Godfrey of Bouillon 
felt when he entered the city of Hierusalem — then you have 
a faint impression of '*L" 's and my joy when, by the 
Dawn's early light, we beheld the holy, most godly. Christ- 
like, pure, wise, unearthly, most filled with the Holy Ghost 
city of Havana. 



THE SEAMY SIDE OF HAVANA 

Havana is the same old city I have so often visited and 
written about, but with this newest and most surprising 
thing. Listen and learn. One day, in this city whose most 
absorbing occupation is dissipation and gallantry, a young 
man seriously asked me whether the Bible still meant v/hat 
it said about adultery, and whether it was really wrong for 
him to be in love with another man's wife. tempora ! 
mores! 




MARTINIQUE MARDI GRAS 




HAVANA CARNIVAL FLOAT 



SEASODOMS 171 

Havana has cast the spell of "paradise" over the United 
States, and this is the way she spells it — 

P alms 

A ngels 

R iches 

A mours 

D rink 

I dleness 

S ociety 

E ntertainment 

The siren voice of this Circean city ever calls : "Come, 
with your private yacht, on the Gulf Stream of Gold ; come, 
with full purse and empty head and heart ; come, you 'best' 
society that you may be seen at your worst ; come, all ye who 
would desert the temple of your mind and soul for my pal- 
ace of fleshly pleasures." 

Havana is the place where bad people go to have a good 
time. The more disreputable the resort, the more popular 
it is with high society. It is a Fool's Paradise — a lunatic 
limbo for people with loud clothes, lots of money, loose 
morals and light heads. 

Havana is still the home of "yellow" fever — not the 
mosquito variety — but the "gold" bug kind, which is found 
everywhere, especially in the hotels. Cuba is the island 
where Nature sings "The Palms," not only on Palm Sunday, 
but every day of the year. The Royal palm tree extends 
from Santiago to Havana, and like it is the palm of the 
hotel-keeper always extended for more. One price is 
charged and another collected, an unreasonable bill of one 
day doubled the next. You wire in advance for front rooms 
and are promised them. You arrive late at night and are 
shoved into a back, small, stuffy room for the same price. 
You complain and are told next morning that someone came 
who offered more money. Even then you are informed the 
room you just occupied is worth more money and you must 
pay it or go elsewhere. During the tourist season there are 
no rights a Havana landlord is bound to respect. If you 
tell him your bill is too high, he blandly informs you that 
the city has an excellent aeroplane service which is always 



172 SEASODOMS 

available. Havana has ever been the haunt of pirates, and 
it's about time that the ancient practise of garroting them 
was revived. 

In Havana what do you go to see? See your money go. 
Nero spent $150,000 for a single dish ; if he had waited, he 
might have purchased it a trifle cheaper in Havana. Here 
one pays the price of luxuries for necessities. Shoe-stores 
on Obispo and O'Reilly streets should be called ''freeboot- 
eries." Clothing prices threaten to drive the poor to fig-leaf 
fashion garments. 

Many are the travelers here, like Pantagruel, in search 
of the Dive Bouteille — Holy Bottle, and who believe in its 
oracular utterance — **Drink!" The man who holds in ven- 
eration the memory of Noah, notices on entering Havana 
that the harbor entrance is "bottle-necked," and well "forti- 
fied" — with booze. The "Fountain of Youth" here is not 
water, but "cask"ades of wine and beer, etc. However, one 
needs the purse of Croesus, for if you want to drink you 
must pay what the bar wants to charge — a price as exorbi- 
tant as smuggled liquor brings in the States. If you remon- 
strate with the bartender, you may send for the manager, 
as my friend did, and have him say, "Don't bother me — tell 
your troubles to a policeman." If you are mad and tired 
of Cuba, go to Guadeloupe and Martinique in the French 
West Indies where the rent-hog is unknown ; where a good 
room rents for $7 a month ; where a course dinner, with a 
bottle of wine, at the best hotel costs only 40 cents ; where 
rum punch is 3 cents a glass, wine 5c, and the best brands 
of champagne $1.60 to $2.00 a quart. In Cuba you pay 
$2.50 for a bottle of wine, and $12 for a quart of cham- 
pagne. At Martinique I met a captain of a freighter from 
Marseilles who was sailing to New Orleans with 40 tons of 
wines and champagnes for that port on his manifest. He 
said he had been offered $50,000 for six months to run a 
fishing smack between Cuba and Florida to smuggle liquor. 
He had bought whisky at 2 shillings six-pence a quart and 
sold it for $10 a quart. 

Pascal wrote that man was the "glory and scum of the 
universe." Much of the scum of United States has floated 
to Havana. The lure of "spiritual" elixirs (there is a ver- 
mouth in town known as "Vaticano") has brought a "bum" 



SEASODOMS 173 

element to the island. Havana has become a convention 
city for crooks who frequent the race-track, saloons and 
gambling-hells. Most appropriately has the outline of Cuba 
been compared to the hammer-headed shark. Fights and 
brawls are common; city jails are full of American drunks 
and toughs. Cuba has imported laborers from Haiti to 
raise cane, but the worst '*Cain-raisers" have come from 
the U. S. Sterne said, *'An Englishman does not travel to 
see Englishman" — an American does not care to journey 
here to meet such Americans. 

The tourist, robbed right and left, need have litle fear 
of Havana senoritas stealing away his heart. Her beauty 
is largely mythical. As a rule, the Cuban woman looks as 
if she used a barrel of flour to powder her face, and her 
body is built on barrel-hoop lines. To powder she adds 
paint — mama and her daughters are about the only paint- 
ings one finds in town. After viewing and reviewing these 
Spanish ''beauties" (so inferior to our American beauties in 
the garden of love) , one does not feel inclined to purchase 
the books sold in the stores : 'The Art of Kissing in Twelve 
Lessons," "The Art of Caressing in Twelve Lessons." 

The Havana "angel" is an adorable, endurable inutil- 
ity — an expensive luxury on which to hang fine clothes and 
diamonds. Pythagoras made it a rule to review every night 
what he had done during the day. Were she to follow his 
example, I fear she would soon be through, for she appears 
to be master of the art of doing nothing important. 

Havana harbors many "ladies" of that species one 
calls ladies only between quotation marks. God made Cuba, 
but the Devil invented some of Havana's pastimes. The 
Cuban is "revolting" in his pleasures as well as in his poli- 
tics. Streets along the water-front are lined by open bars 
and brothels brilliantly lighted — a mistake, because the in- 
mates resemble female Calibans. 

The witchery of the old time wanton is no more. With 
Flaubert one laments the passing of the fille de joie: "In 
olden times she was beautiful when she walked up the steps 
leading to the temple, when on her shell-like feet fell the 
golden fringe of her tunic, or when she lounged among 
Persian cushions, twirling her collar of cameos and chat- 
ting with the wise men and philosophers. She was beauti- 



174 SEASODOMS 

ful when she stood naked on the threshold of her cella in 
the street of Suburra, under the rosin torchlight that blazed 
in the night, slowly chanting her Campanian lay, while 
from the Tiber came the refrains of the orgies. She was 
beautiful, too, in her old house of the Cite behind the Gothic 
windows, among the noisy students, when without fear of 
the sergeants, they struck the oaken tables with their pew- 
ter mugs, and the worm-eaten beds creaked beneath the 
weight of their bodies. She was beautiful when she leaned 
over the green cloth and coveted the gold of the provincials ; 
then she wore high-heels and had a small waist and a large 
wig which shed its perfumed powder on her shoulders, a 
rose over her ear and a patch on her cheek. Fear not that 
she will ever return, for she is dead, quite dead." 

In spite of the Cuban's boasted love of music, I attended 
a fine Italian Opera at the Teatro National where the song- 
birds sang to empty seats. The city press made little an- 
nouncement before the concert and gave no comment on it 
afterwards. The reporters of the local press are said to 
receive $150 a month subsidy from the government; possi- 
bly the opera manager did not offer them enough to boost 
his musical game. Havana audiences are not so apprecia- 
tive of an artist's throat as the necklace around it. This 
is nothing new. Four years ago when I was here Paderewski 
was given a chilly reception. His audience was small and 
their appreciation and applause even smaller. It was so 
shameful that he cancelled one of his concerts. One news- 
paper said it was because of rheumatism in his fingers. I 
don't think so. It was the inartistic, indifferent, icy heart 
of Havana, and just what you may expect where people 
think more of a dancer's shapely foot than of the hand or 
voice of the world's greatest artists. Frederick the Great, 
who tried to do without sleep, would have enjoyed this city, 
because the night is filled with noise and noisome dust. 
Garbage cans set up and upset furnish "canned" music 
quite as melodic as other "canned" selections you hear in 
native homes. 

Ten miles from town is situated the notorious "Casino" 
which is trying to emulate Monte Carlo with its glare, gold 
and girls. If you win anything there, you are lucky to get 
back to town with it without being murdered or robbed. 



SEASODOMS 175 

Recently a young man, who made a fortune over night, dis- 
appeared, and all they found of him was his leg. Not long 
ago a stark naked woman was discovered dead near the 
"Casino." The mystery has not yet been cleared up. At 
the gate entrance of this palatial gambling-hell I noticed 
policemen taking the license number of every auto that ar- 
rived to keep track of the chauffeurs, many of whom are 
crooks and cut-throats. If you do survive, and reach Ha- 
vana in safety, the size of your bill makes you feel very 
"automobilious." Sad but true, it is easier to locate our 
diplomatic officials at the "Casino" at night, than in their 
offices during the day. 

At the Oriental race-track I made quite a sum of money 
by not betting on a certain horse which a kindly disposed, 
disinterested man urged me to put my money on. Yes, the 
horse lost — I do not think he has yet come in under the wire. 
The track has a bad name even among sports. There was 
no exhibition of fine, fast horses or fast time, simply a fast 
set who threw the races to the bettors who gave the most 
graft. Boozing, betting and profanity were the character- 
istics of the human race at the horse-race. Yet foreign, 
literary, dramatic and musical reviews are crowded out of 
newspaper columns for daily ads and write-ups on the ele- 
vating amusement of the "Casino" and race-track. 

One cannot make an inventory of paradise in Havana 
without mentioning the carnival, with its masking, merri- 
ment and madness when the inhabitants rival ancient Cy- 
prus in carousing and carnality. At the Malecon I watched 
them throw kisses and confetti — the confetti was six inches 
deep, and I wondered how it would be cleared up till I re- 
membered the number of "rakes" there were on the boule- 
vards. The Cuban's idea of heaven is an endless Mardi Gras 
where he may throw star-dust confetti and waltz with the 
angels. However, the Havana carnival lacks the spontaneity 
and gayety of Nice, Venice and Martinique, it being more 
of a fashion show. 

The populace takes little note of time save in the dance. 
All society, from A to Z, thronged the theatres and club- 
houses where they revolved like automata on a music-box. 
I witnessed one ball in a small hall where six policemen 
were stationed to keep the dancers within the bounds of 



176 SEA SODOMS 

decency. My cane was confiscated and checked for fear 
some bon vivant would take it from me and run amuck 
with it. 

The cornerstone in Havana's Temple of Folly is the 
Carnival. We supposed we had buried the Mardi Gras in 
Ash Wednesday, but it had risen here Sunday with a 
Phoenix swoop. Havana senores, senoritas, caballeros, 
muchachos and ninas are noted for their strict observance 
of the Sabbath, i.e., to flirt, gad and promenade, and for 
spending their money only for necessities, i.e., at Sunday 
carnival time on gasoline, confetti, serpentines, floats, 
masks, balls, costumes and a pandemonium of pleasure that 
runs riot from the Plaza down the Prado and around the 
Malecon. From noon till night there was blare of horns, 
glare of glances, decorated autos, festoons of flowers, trucks 
pulled by caracolling horses, and loads of mad merry-mak- 
ers full of animal spirits and the other kind, ''Vermouth 
Magno," a giant bottle float of which headed the procession. 
"Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb, like the sun; it 
shines everywhere." When old Sol said good-night to El 
Morro, and the streets were illuminated by flaming piles of 
confetti that had been raked up and set afire, it was sym- 
bolical of the many pyres of fiery pleasures in the city on 
which its youth are immolated. ''Do as you please" is Ha- 
vana's motto. On street and in ball-room women and girls 
shrieked and screamed at the top of their voices. Evident- 
ly they do not believe in Shakespeare's compliment to the 
sex, "Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low; an excellent 
thing in woman." Yea, man and woman are but clowns 
dancing on the edge of an abyss. Italy for painting, Greece 
for sculpture, Germany for music, France for liberty, Eng- 
land for literature, America for money, and Cuba for 
"Cheer, cheer, the gang's all here." 

Cuba has declared a moratorium, yet the people are 
neither paying each other nor the U. S., and act as if sugar 
were 25c a pound. They cry for financial aid, yet I wit- 
nessed a Sunday carnival where $75,000 was foolishly 
thrown away like so much confetti. 

The Havana youth is a dapper dude who improves his 
mind by strutting and staring on the Plazas, and accosting 
women with insulting looks and words. With him cursing 



SEA SODOMS 177 

passes for rhetoric. His curriculum includes the race-track, 
cock-pit and roulette table, and he pursues sport more than 
studies. He is familiar with all liquors except the stimu- 
lating wine of progress. 

The island, with all its sugar, is far from sweet — it is 
rank and rotten, and politics smells to heaven. The Havana 
politicians are most skilled in deception, and they accept 
the charge of corruption as a compliment. They impoverish 
the city and enrich themselves. Their favorite mottos are : 
"In Graft we trust," "Public office is a private steal," 
"Dishonesty is the best policy," "Get in and get away with 
it." "Thou shalt steal" is the commandment they specially 
observe. Their idea of happiness is to hold up the election 
returns and to congest commerce in the harbor. At a recent 
election in a country district, bullets were more in evidence 
than ballots. The politician is always puffing away at his 
cigaret, recalling Tolstoi's observation that men smoke to 
stifle their conscience. Politics and sport are the two lead- 
ing words in the Cuban's vocabulary. He has been weighed 
in the balance and found wanting in respect to virility, 
initiative, will power, tenacity, conscience and pure regard 
for women. 

Cuba is retrograding. Schools are poor and inefficient, 
churches empty, and the majority of the men atheists. 
Trains run with the speed of a glacier ; it is quicker to send 
a letter than a telegram. Ships are delayed indefinitely. 
Recently a boat was held up at Jucaro for two days because 
the doctor had made a trip to Havana. 

The island has many Spanish descendants who "Re- 
member the Maine," and who have nothing but contempt 
for the United States, God has made Cuba beautiful with 
her altar-like mountains, smile of the sea, waving palms, 
fragrant fruits and flowers and sweet cane-fields, but Satan 
has entered this Eden and left his slimy trail. Cuba, "The 
Pearl of the Antilles," has been trampled under the hoofs 
of human swine. Too often the C in Cuban character 
stands for cupidity, carnality, crookedness, cabals, char- 
latinism, "Caramba" cursing, and contempt for Americans. 

Lot left Sodom and was saved. As I sailed away from 
Havana I thought what a wonderful city it was — from the 
stern of a ship. "Adios," I cried, "city where pleasure is a 



178 SEA SODOMS 

rite, idleness a duty and depravity an accomplishment, 
Vanity, vanity, all is Havanity, saith the preacher." 



ADVERTISING FLORIDA 

All things are possible and most things come to pass, 
so at last I was with "Governor Cobb" who took me over to 
Key West where I met Miss "Mascotte." A night on this 
old tub was very pleasant — according to Gautier's definition 
that the pleasure of travel lies in difficulty and fatigue. 
After vainly attempting to court Somnus, I left my martyr 
couch and crawled on deck. Night was very extravagant 
and had all the light of the moon and stars turned on. These 
resplendent scintillations were all for the benefit of a swarm 
of spiggety cigarmakers, returning to Tampa after a year's 
strike, who jammed the narrow decks and moaned and 
puked the scuppers full. 

Next noon we arrived at Tampa Bay where De Soto 
had preceded us by 382 years. This puissant rascallion, 
who with Pizarro had been a stick-up artist in Peru, and 
like the rest of those conquistadores would set the four cor- 
ners of the world on fire to roast his own chestnuts, came 
to Florida to disembowel and dispossess the Indians of their 
wealth. He swore to God that his enterprise was under- 
taken for Him alone. Being solicitous for his men's eternal 
salvation, he brought priests and monks along with him in 
addition to fetters and bloodhounds. His ships carried the 
sacred vessels and he invested in vestments and was well 
stocked with eucharistic bread and wine. As a butcher of 
red Indian meat he was a success ; as a gold-finder and soul- 
saver, a failure. However, to be just, we must credit him 
with introducing many brands of misery heretofore un- 
known to the simple savage. After wading through swamps 
of mud and sloughs of despondency, and being attacked by 
savages and fever, he had the good judgment to quit, and 
following the example of the frogs in the marsh, "croaked." 
Thus ended his brilliant record of uninterrupted avarice. 
After life's fitful fever he rests in the bed of the Mississippi 
river covered over with a thick blanket of yellow mud. 



SEASODOMS 179 

Where he failed others have since succeeded, and in 
fruits, cigars, hotels, resorts and real estate deals made 
millions. Port Tampa seemed to be practicing the divine 
right of stagnation — the best thing we sav^ was the depot 
where we boarded a train for Tampa. Here were shacks, 
big hotels,' business houses, stores, cigar-factories, citrus 
fruit plants, fish markets, phosphate and fuller's earth, and 
churches of sanctified dullness, undeviating stupidity and 
tedious Te Deums. I was so anxious to leave that my taxi 
broke the speed limit to the ferry where the gang was being 
drawn in, and I jumped on it and got aboard. Judge Free- 
man P. Lane, my former Minneapolis friend, was on this 
"City of Philadelphia," and the stories of old days and of 
his travels abroad made the distance to St. Petersburg far 
too short. 

On the pier I spied the Spa with its ''Fountain of 
Youth" which Ponce had overlooked. St. Petersburg, Flor- 
ida, rivals the Russian city founded by Peter the Great I 
had visited some years ago. You may not know it, but this 
St. Pete, is proclaimed a "paradise" (for invalids), "the 
promised land" (for real estate speculators), "the sunshine 
city" (which accounts for life's walking shadows on Central 
Avenue, the Nevsky Prospect of the city). Many of the 
shadows rest on the bright green benches blossoming along 
both sides of the street. Here genarians, octo and sexa, 
from North and other compass points, come to save funeral 
expenses. Some of them were reading — was it Cicero's 
"De Senectute," or those more classic productions, "The St. 
Petersburg Independent" and "St. Petersburg Times?" St. 
Pete, is a seat of learning and many are the chairs in parks 
filled by philosophical-looking men and women. The city 
has many churches, but these are the real orthodox "bench- 
warmers" who worship the sun, for the only czars in this 
St. Petersburg are the "Zar"athustrians, fire-worshippers. 

Boosters tell us this is one of the most "interesting 
winter resorts" in the U. S. I went to the park where the 
band was playing icy airs and the people were sitting in 
"enwrapped" attention. The band was not the only thing 
playing, for sitting out in the open, or in rustic shelter 
houses— not half so rustic as the players from Iowa and 
Dakota — were people pursuing the feverish pleasures of 



180 SEASODOMS 

checkers, chess, dominoes, croquet, and roque. What I 
thought a cockpit proved to be a roost of human buzzards 
watching an animated tournament of horseshoe and quoit 
players. Shades of the classic discobolus! How different 
the outlines of these farmers to the 5th century quoit- 
throwers of Myron. As I felt the icy blast, and saw around 
me the members of the Overcoat Club, I saw the city admin- 
istrators were not lying when they called it a "winter re- 
sort." As for ''interesting/' the study of these people rivals 
that of the specimens found in asylums. What would you 
think of men and women in coats and furs sitting in Lincoln, 
Central or Loring park playing chess and dominoes ? Look- 
ing up at trees festooned with Spanish moss, it required 
little imagination, to think they were covered with snow 
and icicles. Enthusiasts proclaim the weather ''flawless" 
in St. Pete. During my stay the streets were flooded with 
things other than sunshine — evidently the sky's reservoir 
had several "flaws" through which the rain leaked. St. 
Pete, is ye moral towne. Here are no ballad and w^hore 
mongers, as in Cuba and the Spanish main, but fishmongers. 
There is a bigger choice of fish than old Walton ever saw — 
tarpon, kingfish, amber jacks, mackerel, pompano, cobia, 
robalo, trout, weakfish, redfish, yellowtails, jew-fish, sheeps- 
head, snapper, flounder, grouper. You may catch all of 
these and more, but beware lest the land shark catch you. 
In the Russian St. Petersburg I was shadowed by spies, 
here I was stalked by the real estate speculator of whom I 
could not say with Macbeth, "Thou hast no speculation in 
those eyes which thou dost glare with." He not only sells 
land by the sponge and bucketful, but climate also, as is 
done in California and Hawaii. One chunk of climate on 
one. corner may be worth $1,000, while 100 feet away it may 
be worth $4,000. On Sunday in auto, on beach, street, or 
in store, tourists are legitimate prey. Hunting and fishing 
are nothing to the real estate game. Its promoters are said 
to haunt the dying and to tell them not to go, for St. Peters- 
burg is better than anything St. Peter can show them over 
there. Like the chameleon, those who live here are expected 
to live on air. They say the climate and people are perfect, 
and Creation can teach them nothing. A landman autoed 
me to a beach and offered to show me some property, but 



S E A S O D O M S 181 

the sun'vS reflection (it happened to be shining that day) 
from the white sand and water was so blinding, and the 
half-naked bathing girls so dazzling, T couldn't see it. No 
other county in Florida is so well supplied with brick roads, 
St. Pete, itself having 55 miles of paved streets, nor is there 
so little to be seen on the way. The country is as flat as a 
billiard table, and the cabbage-palm monotonously breaks 
the monotony. In florid Florida folders they ring the changes 
on this arboreal asset as much as Japan does on her P'uji- 
yama, but picturesquely speaking, one can live longer among 
mountains than with cabbage-palms without being bored. 
True, the state raises the finest oranges and grape fruit — 
also some of the poorest specimens of humanity known as 
crackers. An Indian mound was pointed out to me as an 
ancient lookout— it looked more to me as though the sav- 
ages had enjoyed a gigantic clam bake and left the shells. 
This "city beautiful" makes much of "solid comfort," but 
since it is a liquid variety that most travelers are looking 
for, it loses many prospective patrons who stop at Miami 
and Palm Beach and are so steeped with its intoxicating at- 
mosphere they are unable to get further away. In St. Pete, 
people are as careless and reckless as in the East coast re- 
sorts. In the park I read a scribbled note tacked to a tree 

to the effect that Mr. B , from South Dakota, dropped 

a one-dollar bill near this spot, and if found to kindly re- 
turn to the owner. St. Pete, is a pulmonary paradise — 
spitting seems to be a religious exercise like that performed 
by the M^ssalians who thought they breathed devils in the 
air, and spat them out continually. If troubled with in- 
somnia, the best sleeping potion I can suggest is the local 
press and folders ; if you have asthmatics, listen to the long- 
winded ministers and lecturers here and learn how it is 
done; if rheumatic, look at the hustling real estate agent 
and follow his example. The color line extends from Ma- 
son's and Dixon's to Florida's Key West. In St, Pete, this 
dark line is seen in train and street car-lines, and. in the 
boast of the public schools and churches where there is sep- 
aration and segregation. This beautifully eliminates, in 
church, the idea of love your brother man, and in public 
school, the idea of liberty for all. 



182 SEASODOMS 

If you tire of the city's madding crowd, fail to enthuse 
or wax ecstatic over St. Pete., and sigh for a "lodge in some 
vast wilderness," take a "Jungle" streetcar and ride out ten 
miles where you may enjoy umbriferous happiness, look 
way out over sun or moon-lit bay, listen to plaintive note of 
bird, know that the wildest animal in this jungle is the tour- 
ist, and that the sound that causes horripilation is nothing 
but the rush and siren horn of the motor-bus to Tampa. 

If you care to pass a few hours and be grilled by the 
sun, go to Pass a Grille, and bathe, fish and catch stone- 
crabs. I saw several boats full of fishers, and wished I was 
one of them, in spite of what Swift says that a fish-pole has 
bait on one end and a fool on the other. 

Belleair is the spot where blue sky, green land and 
water invite America's poor millionaires who are weary of 
clipping coupons and the mental worry of outshining, din- 
ing and wining their society neighbors. Here they recu- 
perate and go back refreshed to grind out more money from 
the needy poor. Don't think they spend all their time at 
Belleair eating, drinking and sleeping, for you must know 
there is situated here a great institute of learning whose 
"courses" are very popular. I saw many engaged in the 
intellectual pursuit of golf -playing, and was pleased to see 
them making the most of their time and not wasting it in 
trifling art, religion, politics and philanthropy. 

Leaving this Mecca of moneybags we reached Jackson- 
ville, Florida's big depot, where you catch a train to travel 
elsewhere. The whirligig of time has brought about many 
changes from the day French explorers found savages here 
who said they were 250 years old, till now when you find 
many wild young men and women who live at such a pace 
they die before fifty. I could a tale unfold of Florida's his- 
tory — a bloody record of conspiracy, sedition, mutiny, 
butchery, cannibalism, war, famine and massacre — from 
the time of the murderous Menendez, to the American gov- 
ernment's shameful persecution of the Seminole Indians, 
more stenchful than the Everglade swamps it drove them 
to — ^but to do this would simply be to echo the curses of the 
Caribbean I have already written about. 



'^ . SEASODOMS 183 

MY NATIVE LAND, GOOD-NIGHT 

Let us pass on with the train to a more pleasant state 
of affairs — Georgia, named after George II, who, as Thack- 
eray says, was false to his wife and hated his son, had 
neither- morals, manners nor wit, and wasn't much missed 
when he died in a fit. Georgia is further famed for English 
debtors, Indian wars, slavery, secession, Ku Klux Klan, 
corruption, child-labor, convicts, coca-cola, peaches and 
crackers. Today, in dear old Georgia, Southern chivalry 
and justice have recently been illustrated by the light of 
negroes burning at the stake, and the system of black peon- 
age which planters sought to hide by chaining their negro 
workmen, tossing them in the river, or burying them in post 
holes — not to mention other unmentionable atrocities, intim- 
idating the colored voter, and compelling him to sell his 
home. As we journeyed through Tennessee with its his- 
toric battlefields, national cemeteries and monuments, I 
felt thankful my father volunteered and left his family for 
the Civil War which freed the slaves and gave them the 
privilege to vote. It was a relief to breathe the free air of 
the North, of Illinois and Minnesota, where there is no 
such race prejudice — except that not long ago in Chicago 
and Duluth there were fierce black and white riots, quite as 
hellish as anything in Haiti. 

Home again to Minneapolis ! The trip took over three 
months, the account has been written in six weeks — between 
weddings, sick calls, funerals, magazine and newspaper 
articles, eating, sleeping, etc. — and my reader, if I have 
one, has probably wasted three hours reading what he will 
very likely forget in ten minutes. I hope he may, — if he 
can. As I began this book with a quotation from "Gulli- 
ver," so with him, "I here take a final leave of all my cour- 
teous readers and return to enjoy my own speculations in 
my little garden — ^to behold my figure often in the glass, and 
thus, if possible, habituate myself by time to tolerate the 
sight of a human creature." 



"In 0U7' little ivorld your name will he posted in the 
Hall of Infamy." — Dr. J. Justin, Franco Havana, CUBA. 

''About the Rev, Golightly Morrill there is nothing cut 
and dried, and nothing mealy-mouthed." — NEW YORK 
WORLD. 

"Mor7Hirs stifle is strong, incisive, interesting and epi- 
grammatic"— NEW YORK AMERICAN. 

''Golightly describes things just as he finds them., no 
matter where his shafts ynay fall or who they may hit." — 
CHICAGO BLADE. 

"In beautifully describing the vile and vicious, Golight- 
ly has no equal."— DULUTH CALENDAR. 

"You have surely raised the Dickens on this island." — 
Clement Malone, St. Kitts, British WEST INDIES. 

"Your book has shocked the Guianas, and you are lucky 
not to be here and listen to the criticism." — M. J. Silverman, 
Demerara, SOUTH AMERICA. 

"You certainly stirred up a bee-hive here — in fact, 
several of them, and believe me, if you were near enough, 
I think they would sting you pretty well." — Andrew De 
Graux, Havana, CUBA. 

Curse of the Caribbean and the Three 
Guianas (Gehennas) 

By Rev. ''Golightly" Morrill 
Rare Photos, 269 Volcanic Pages, Only $1.25 Postpaid. 

A close-up picture of crime and carnality in Martinique, 
British Guiana, Dutch Guiana, French Guiana, St. Vincent, 
Grenada, Bermuda, Barbados, Trinidad, St. Kitts, Montser- 
rat, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, etc. 

The edition is almost exhausted. Orders from Europe, 
South America, the West Indies, and islands of the Pacific, 
show that people are interested in this book. Are you ? 

Address: G. L. Morrill, Pastor People's Church, 

3356 Tenth Avenue South, 

Minneapolis, Minnesota, U. S. A. 



UNSURPASSED ! UNSUPPRESSED ! 
FOUR BOOKS BY REV. "GOLIGHTLY" MORRILL THAT RAISED 
HELL IN THE UNITED STATES, CENTRAL AND 
SOUTH AMERICA, AND PACIFIC ISLES 

Breezy as the Hurricane 
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$1.25 each postpaid or four for $4.00 postpaid. 

"HAWAIIAN HEATHEN AND OTHERS" 

30 "Moving" Picture Photos — 266 Unexpurgated Pages — 

LITERARY TNT 

Lifting the Lid Off Hawaii's Melting Pot 

Breaking the Tabus Set Up by Mock-Modesty and Reserve 

"THE DEVIL IN MEXICO" 

Everybody from Alaska to Panama has read about it; ex-Presi- 
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350 Explosive Pages Atrocity Photos. 

"ROTTEN REPUBLICS" 

A Tropical Tramp in 
CENTRAL AMERICA 

A Witty, Racy, Epigrammatic Book, Right Up-to-Date, 

On British Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, 

Spanish Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa 

Rica, Panama, Colombia, Cuba, 

Jamaica and Nassau. 

302 Pages 53 Uncensored Photos 

"ON THE WARPATH" 

A savage attack in which human folly, stupidity, superstition, 

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tomahawked and scalped. 

Striking Photos — 258 Pages Full of **Pep" and Attic Salt. 

Address G. L. MORRILL, Pastor People's Church, 

3356 10th Ave. So., Minneapolis, Minn., U. 5. A. 



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704-706 Andrus Bldg. 
Minneapolis Minn. 



v.. 



FOX & LONG 

UNDERTAKERS AND FUNERAL DIRECTORS 
13 Pittli Street N. E. Minneapolis, Minn 



CHICAGO AVENUE LAUNDRY 



MINNEAPOLIS 



GEORGE B. ESTERMAN, Prop. 
3901-2903 Chicago Avenue 



MINNESOTA 



Best Food and Service 

EMPRESS CAFE 

608 Hennepin Avenue 

NEW UNIQUE LUNCH ROOM 

612 Hennepin Avenue 

APOLLO CAFE 

628 Hennepin Avenue 
THEODORE PAPPAS, Mgr. 



N 



Sick or Nervous 

My System of Chiropractic is 
worth investigating. Send for one 
of my 

FREE HEALTH BOOKLETS 

SICKNESS 

is caused when a vertebra slips 
or turns to one side and presses 
upon the ner\'e as it leaves the 
spine. Don't suffer from that 
chronic ailment any longer. Come 
and have a talk with me. An 
X-Ray picture of your spine and 
a few spinal adjustments may be 
just the thing you need to have 
your health restored. 
Consultation and Spinal Analysis 
Free. 

HEALTH BOOKLETS 
SENT YOU FREE 

Palmer Graduate 
Chiropractor 

DR. JOSEPH H. STRAND 

ST. PAUL OFFICE: 330 BREMER ARCADE 
331-4 LOEB ARCADE, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. GRANVILLE 7132 





Metropolitan National Bank 

Second Ave. South and Sixth Street 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 



MASONIC TEMPLE PHARMACY 



JACOB .JACOBSOA, Piopvietor 
52« Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis, Minn 



^ 



RENTZ BROS. 



MANUFACTURING JEWEUERS 
39 South Fifth Street 



Minneapolis 



COMPLIMENTS 

OF THE 

ANDREWS HOTEL 

MINNEAPOLIS 

» J ■ 

A. M. SMITH 

"FORD" AUTHORIZED DEALER 

Everything for the Ford Car 

FORD SALES & SERVICE 

806-814 South Fourth Street Minneapolis 



Mercantile State Bank 

BANK WITH A GROWING BANK 

Ample capital and surplus, together with efficient officers and 
directors, place this institution in a position to handle accounts 
of individuals, firms and corporations on a most satisfactory 
basis. You are cordially invited to take up your business 
affairs with the officers of this bank and join the constantly 
increasing number of depositors who are sharing in its per- 
sonal and efficient service. 

Officers: 
W. B. TSCHARNER 
President 
L. S. SWENSON M. C. TIFFT 

Vice President Vice President 

J. C. YENNY E. J. OLSON 

Cashier Asst. Cashier 

M. T. GUYER A. H. TIMMERMAN 

Asst. Cashier Asst. Cashier 

THE BANK OF PERSONAL SERVICE 

Located in the Traffic Center 

HENNEPIN AVENUE AT SIXTH STREET 

Capital $300,000. Surplus and Profits $110,000 



Drink Purity Brewing Co/s 
Products 

PURITY PILSNER 

PURITY POP 

PURITY HEALTH TABLE MALT 

IDEAL DRINKS— BEST IN THE WORLD 

Purity Brev^ing Co. 

14th Ave. So. & 2nd St. Minneapolis 




THK 3HOP ORKSJNAh 



717 NICOLLET AVE. 
MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA 

LADIES OUTER APPAREL 

OF THE BETTER SORT 

Combining 

STYLE, QUALITY and ECONOMY 



HOTEL DYCKMAN 

MINNEAPOLIS^ FINEST HOTEL 

Sixth St. Near Nicollet 

350 ROOMS ALL WITH PRIVATE BATH 

Elizabethan and Coffee Shop Dining Rooms Where 
Over 1400 Dine Every Day 

Home of the Wonderful Electric Pipe Organ 

RATES $2.50 TO $5.00 PER DAY 



THE EPOCH-MAKING LIGHT SIX OF 1921 




The Car that won the Dyas Gold Cup, led the field of 
Stock Cars at the Pike's Peak Hill Climb, and the First 
Car to descend into the Grand Canyon and climb out on 
its own power. 

R. C. SMITH AUTO CO. 
1601 Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis, Minn. 



goi;likg-hesse 

PHOTOGRAPHERS 
Studio: 620 Nicollet Ave MINNEAPOLIS 



Pillsbury's Best 

Compliments 

'' BROWNING, KING & CO. " 

APPAREL FOR MEN AND BOYS 
Nicollet at Fifth Minneapolis 

KEASBEY & MATTISON CO. 

ASBESTOS SHEATHING, PAPER, MILLBOARDS, FIREPROOF 

COVERINGS, ROOFING, THEATRE CURTAINS, ETC. 

427-429 AVashin^ton Ave. N., Minneapolis, Minn. 



r 



Slavics' flBortuarv 

1403 HARMON PLACE 
MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA 



I Minneapolis, Minnesota 

POWERS 

I BOOK SECTION L. II. AVELLS, Manager 



DR. SHEGETARO MORIKUBO 

RKPRKSENTATIVE CHIROPRACTOR 
Suite 321-323 — 822 Xicollet Avenne MINNEAPOLIS 



r 



INSURANCE IN ALL ITS BRANCHES 

REAL ESTATE MORTGAGE LOANS 

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT 

"OUR CLIENTS' INTERESTS OUR BUSINESS" 

H. W. WHITE INVESTMENT CO. 

MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA 



WORDS THAT EXPLAIN WHY 



WOLFSON'S 



IS BECOMING THE LEADING JEWELRY HOLSE OF MINNEAPOLIS 

"DEPENDABLE JEWELRY AT POPULAR PRICES" 

OUR STOCK OP DIAMONDS IS ONE OP THE LARGEST 

TVEST OP NEW YORK 

S. S. WOLFSON, INC. 410 Nicollet Avenue 




GUIANA INDIAN GIRL. 



WEST HOTEL CAFE 

FIRST CLASS EVERY DAY AND WAY 
Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis 



Philadelphia & Reading 

Coal and Iron 

Company 



Reading Anthracite Coal 



108 LUMBER EXCHANGE 

MINNEAPOUS - - MINNESOTA 



THE EARL UNDERTAKING CO. 

Minneapolis Minnesota 






I:. 



.iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiioiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiM 

I American & Chinese | 

I Restaurant | 

1 1 5 So. 7tn Street orpheum theatre 1 

s - - . . - = 

llllillllllllilillllllllillllllllllllllilllllllilllillllllllli^ 



WILLIAM LORENZ 



TRUXK MANUFACTURER 
Minneapolis, Minnesota 212 Marquette Avenue 

V . ^ 



T. V. MOREAU CO. 



Optical Specialists 
616 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis, Minn. 

^_^ / 




5E AM EXPERT 



AUTO 
TRACTOR 
VULCANIZING 



COME to Minneapolis, the Auto and Tractor center o! the great 
Northwest. Over 22.000 sq. ft. of floor space devoted exclusively to 
helping ambitious young men to succeed in their chosen occupotion 
BIG DEMAND AT- BIG PAY FOR MINNEAPOLIS AUTO & 
TRACTOR SCHOOL TRAINED MECHANICS 

This school has been endorsed bv the State Dcoartmeni 
best ecuip^'frLdrih^T^^^l^^^f Education and by the Leadin, Trade Journal^ of 
in the Northwest Students re- ^^i«5»^^^ ^"^ country. We are the Official hchool o! ihc 
ceive instructions on such standard ^^^^5^^^^^^^ Hart-Parr Compan\ and other manufac 
makesoftractorsastheMinneapolis.Case, ^"^t^^^^^^^^ Hirers. What greater endor'-ement of 
Avery. Twin City, Gray, Liberty. Emerson- ^^^^^C^^^ n..r sch(Kjl .s possible' 



LEARN "°'^- 




Brantingham, Huber, Hart-Parr, etc 
LEARN VULCANIZING. Most complete and up- 
to-date equipment used anywhere lor training purposes. 
Retreading and all tire repairs Inlorm.T.ion free upon request. 

Minneapolis Auto & Tractor School 

226 Second Street North, Minneapolis, Minn. 



SANTRIZOS CO. 

"THE GARDEN OF TASTY DAINTIES" 

Chas. Santrizos Geo. A. Santrizos James Santrizos 

James Kotsonas Peter Santrizos 

SODA FOUNTAIN AND LUNCHES 

We Manufacture our own Candies and Ice Cream 

Cigar and Flower Department Unsurpassed 

Hennepin at Sixth Minneapolis, Minn. 

"SANTRIZOS' SUPREME" 1628 HARMON PLACE 



IF YOU WANT 

HIGH GRADE WORK 

AND RIGHT PRICES 
always send your work to 




EXCLUSIVE CLEANER AND DYER 

SINCE 1895 

1028-30 La Salle Ave. 

Minneapolis, Minnesota 




SHIRT MAKERS— IMPORTERS 

MEN'S FINE FURNISHERS AND HATTERS 

London Chicago Detroit Milwaukee 

Saint Paul Minneapolis 

Hotel Radisson Building 



Minneapolis' Finest Tailor 

SUITS $125 AND UP 

WM. L. WOLFSON 

33 SOUTH FOURTH ST. 




THE LEE 
MORTUARY 

Modern Undertaking 

Proprietor, R. P. LEE 

Nicollet Ave. at W. 15th St. 

Minneapolis Minnesota 



The Leamington 

MINNEAPOLIS 

The Largest and Most Attractive Apartment Hotel 
In the World 



The Travelers Equitable Insurance Co. 



A LEADER IN ITS FIELD. 



Wrote more individual health and accident business in Minne- 
sota in 1920 than any other company. 

Make our own service distinctive. 
w/r' f Issue only full coverage policies. 

Give a little more value for the cost involved. 
Put ^'conscience" into claim settlements. 

HOME OFFICE: PALACE BUILDING, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 

V. . ^% 



Burd P. Johnston & Co. 

Funeral Directors and Embalmers 

MRS. JOHNSTON, LADY ASSISTANT 

Parlors — 12 West Lake St., 3020 Hennepin Avenue 
Minneapolis, Minn. 



I 



i 



HILL'S 

DINING and LUNCH ROOM 

LESLIE and ROOD, Proprietors 
252-254 Marquette Avenue Minneapolis, Minn. 



■"N 



LADIES' TAILOR 

R. G. Nielsen 

Importing Tailor for Women 

24 South Eighth Street Minneapolis 



THE 



New Mandarin 

25-27 South Fifth Street Minneapolis 

"THE TALK OF THE TOWN" 
Snappy Orchestra DANCING 



HUSSEY The HATTER 



MAKES OLD HATS LOOK XEW I 

IQVz North 7tli Street Minneapolis, 3[inn. | 

\ THE BIJOU ' 1 

I MINNEAPOLIS' LARGEST MOVIE THEATRE I 

I PRODUCING ALL THE BEST FEATURES I 

V-_ , / 



AMOR 



FUNERAL DIRECTORS 
Every facility for correct services -without uncomfortable professional 
formality, llie privacy of a well appointed residence at the disposal 

of those whose apartments are unsuitable for this ceremony. 

AGNES M. AMOR C. E. HAWKINS 

Second Avenue South at Nintli Street, Minneapolis 




J. I. BESSLER 

LOCKSMITH 

UMBRELLAS REPAIRED AND 

RECOVERED 

214 Sixth St. S. Minneapolis 



HENNEPIN COUNTY SAVINGS BANK 

Marquette Ave. and Fourth St. Resources Over .$10,000,000.00 

INVITES BUSINESS AND PERSONAL CHECKING ACCOUNTS 

4 per cent Interest Paid on Savings, Compounded Quarterly 

OLDEST SAVINGS BANK IN MINNESOTA 

J 

{ A. E. PAEGEL 1 

I JEAVELER AND OPTICIAN 

I Opposite Radisson Hotel Minneapolis, Minnesota i 

\ GAMBLE & LUDWIG 1 

DRUGS, PAINTS, OILS, VARNISHES, BRUSHES, ETC. 
I 901-903 Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis, Minn. I 

r — '■ ■ 

Beckys Food Emporium 

12 STORES UNDER ONE ROOF 
COMPLETE FOOD SHOP 

Between Nicollet and Hennepin 

16-18 South Eighth Street 

MINNEAPOLIS 



American Tent and Awning Company 



C. M. RAWITZER, Pre». 



Tents and Awnings 
Paulins, Wagon Covers 
Horse Covers and 

Blankets 
Auto Covers, Water Bags 
Canvas Aprons and Bags 
Sleeping Porch Curtains 
Canoe and Auto Tents 

TENTS FOR 
18-20 West Third St. 
307-309-311 Washington Ave. N. 



Cotton and Roll Duck 
Lawn Folding Furniture 
Cow Covers and Blankets 
Feed Bags, Oiled Clothing 
Sails, Flags, Umbrellas 
Waterproof Covers 
Lambing Tents 

RENT 

St. Paul, Minn. 
Minneapolis, Minn. 




DEAD DRUNK— FORT DE FRANCE, MARTINIQUE. 

COMPLIMENTS OF 

JOSIAH H. CHASE 



1 



McDIVITT & COMPANY 

FUNERAL DIRECTORS AND EMBALMERS 

2707 E. Lake Street Minneapolis. Minn. 

V.« / 



J 



t ^ 

It's a Pleasure to BUY Meats, Groceries, Pastries, 

Dairy Products, Fruit and Vegetables, Delicatessen, 

Poultry and Fish from 

Witt's Market House 

"THERE'S A DIFFERENCE" 
705-7-9 Hennepin Avenue MINNEAPOLIS 



K. J. KNAPP CO. 



OPTOMETRISTS AND OPTICIANS 
53 South Eighth Street Minneapolis, Minn. 

.— \ J 

' LAKE VIEW CONFECTIONERY "^ 

CANDIES, FRUITS, FLOWERS, ICES, SOFT DRINKS, CIGARS 

Geanakoplos Bros, and Gust .1. Forehas, Props. 

Hennepin Avenue at Lake St. Minneapolis. Minn. 

^ : . J 



W. F. KURTZ & CO. 



VEGETABLES AND PRODUCE 

621 Seeond Ave. N. Minneapolis, Minn. 

V.__ J 



1 



C. GERDES 



GROCERIES AND MEATS 181S-1S20 Lyndale Avenue South 

Minneapolis, 3Iinnesota 

V. J 

MOORE, TERWILLIGER, INC. 

FLORAL DESIGNS FOR ALL OCCASIONS 

Phone: At. 6242 

Nicollet Avenue at Eleventh Minneapolis 



TAYLOR & WATSON 



WALL PAPER, PAINTING AND DECORATING 
iS Eighth Street South Minneapolis, Minn 

v__ : / 



1 



606 Nicollet Ave, 



"High Grade Shoes at Popular Cash Prices" 

OmStendal 

'Style Without Extravagance' 



•>v 



Minneapolis, Minn. 



-N 




FAMOUS FOR 

POWER AND ECONOMY 

"The Best Liked Car in America" 

1922 Line Comprises Touring Cars, Roadsters, 

Coupes and Sedans 

4 and 6 Cylinder Models 




The Truck With the International Reputation 
BUILT RIGHT— PRICED RIGHT 

3/^ to 5 Tons Capacity 

PENCE AUTOMOBILE CO. 

MINNEAPOLIS 
St. Paul, Fargo, N. D., Billings, Mont., Minot, N.. D. 



*sH99:ywoLEsoME 



A Real Drink 



In delicious flavor, purity and 
wholesomeness it has a supe- 
riority that tells the story of 
its popularity. 

A drink for every member 
of the family with meals and 
between meals — a treat for 
your guests. 

Order a Case Sent Home. 
Cherry 3631 

The Gluek Co. 

Minneapolis 



Atlantic 0671 
0672 



Jokn H. Davidson 

INVESTMENTS 

Specializing 

Building, Owning, Operating, Buying, Selling and Leasing 
of Hotel and Kitchenet Apartment Properties. 

Suite 723 Plymouth Bid. Minneapolis, Minn. 



Going Traveling.? 

or jiKt moving a trunk to a new hotel ? 
In either case you'll want me to handle it because my men 
are not of the "baggage-smasher" kind. 

"DO-IT-RIGHT" J. D. EKSTRUM 

Flour City Fuel & Transfer Co. 

40 West Lake Street, Minneapolis 



FOR GOOD, CLEAN AMUSEMENT— 
DON'T SHOW-SHOP— 

THE SIGN OF 
A GOOD TIME 



9 



PATRONIZE THESE THEATRES 

State New Garrick 
New Lyric Strand 



Highest Class 
Feature Photoplays 
Unexcelled Short Reels 
Finest Music 



Minneapolis 
Minn. 




as, 1R, Obcn^cl & Co. 



wmm 



FUR MANUFACTURERS OF KNOWN QUALITY 
54 So. Seventh MINNEAPOLIS 



$100. £2 Earned by Young Artist in 2 Days 




book 

FEDERAL SCHOOL 
Federal Schools Building: 



Conscientious, careful training by members of 
our faculty made this possible. You, too, should 
succeed, with proper training. 
Earn $50, $75, $100 
a Week and More. 
The business world 
pays big prices for good 
designs and illustrations. 
Learn to draw during 
your spare time by the 
"Federal" home study 
m e t h o d — endorsed by 
high authorities. EASY 
to LEARN, EASY to 
APPLY. 

Send 6c in stanips to- 
day for "Your I'uture," 
& beautiful new 56 page 
vt^ h i c h explains every step. State your 
OF COMMERCIAL DESIGNING 

Minneapolis, Minnesota 




I 



[ 



YOUR OLD FRIEND BACK 
ON THE JOB 



WW 



Have a 

Case 
in your 
Cellar; 
a half-doz. 
Bottles 
in your 
Refrigerator 
and be 
Happy 



Piii 




r<i^s than;^ of i%alcohol iViom 




The R 



cai 



Lagered 



Brew 

It's got 
the Snap 

It's got 

the Taste 

DRINK 

it 
COOL 



Phone your Order to Dinsmore 7820 
Golden Grain Juice Co., Minneapolis 



ARCADIA CANDY STORE 



Minneapolis | 
J 



r 



C. H. ELLIOTT & CO. 



FUNERAL DIRECTORS AND EMBALMERS 
1839 East Lake St. Minneapolis, Minn. 



William Weisman Company 

Manufacturing Furriers 

FINE FASHIONABLE FURS 

*There is an air of refinement 
and luxury about our Furs, 
which instantly attracts the ad- 
miration of those who know 
Quality. 

"He's a wise man who buys his 
Furs from Weisman" 

508 NICOLLET AVENUE 
Minneapolis, Minnesota 




Lincoln Said: 



"We shall sooner have the fowl by 
hatching the egg than by smashing it." 

This quaint but forceful philosophy of Lincoln's may aptly be ap- 
plied to banking. The Lincoln National Bank invariably gives the 
same consideration and attention to the wants of the small depos- 
itor as to those of the large one, believing firmly that only through 
the good will and co-operation of its small depositors can it be of 
maximum service to the community as a banking instit'ution. 
Total Resources $4,000,000.00 
Four Per Cent on Saving Deposits 
Safety Deposit Boxes 

Lincoln National Bank 

Hennepin at Eighth 
Minneapolis Minnesota 



J. E. BOSTROM & COMPANY 

FUNERAL, DIRECTORS 
3008 37th Ave. So. Minueapolls, Minn. 



I 



"My Method WiU Please You" 

You Don't Need Cash 

with 

Max A. Kohen 

13 SO. 5TH ST. 
MINNEAPOLIS 

DIAMONDS— WATCHES 
DELIVERED ON FIRST PAYMENT 



NEVER BE IN DOUBT 

Send all of your Cleaning, Dyeing 

and Laundry Work 

to 

GROSS BROS. 

Cleaners — Dyers — Launderers 

86-90 So. 10th St. 

Minneapolis 



711 Hennepin Ave. 

WHERE YOU ARE NEVER DISAPPOINTED 

W. A. Sobelman 0. A. Rowe 



— \ 

It's far easier to do things Right than to do them wrong. 
What I do— I do Right. 
CREATOR OF FASHION'S LATEST IDEAS 
I alter and remodel garments. Keep a complete stock of ready- 
made furs. I store and protect your furs. I never slight anything 
I do. My prices are always right, too. 






725 Nicollet Avenue MINNEAPOLIS 
V. / 



"""e^JSJcal JACOB ANDRESEN GO'S. 

LIGHTING FIXTURES SUPPLIES AND APPLIANCES 

Cor. 3rd and 3rd South Minneapolis 



N. L. ENGER 



UNDERTAKER 
432 Cedar Avenue Miuneapolis, Minn. 



NICKELS & SMITH 



REAL ESTATE, RENTALS, LOANS AND INSURANCE 
311 Nicollet Avenue Minneapolis, Minn. 



WARREN & COMPANY STocerI'''^ ^ 

Our Specialty "BIG-4 COFFEE" Is The Best 

Minneapolis 116-20 North Seventh Street Minnesota 



I 






LANDIS1& OAKLEY 

FUNERAL DIRECTORS 

SUCCESSORS TO. W. H. LANOTS CO. 

1336 Nicollet Avenue Minneapolis 




A PARAMARIBO BELLE— DUTCH GUIANA. 



Prophylactic Treatment 
NERVOUS-BLOOD-SKIN AND CHRONIC DISEASES 



DR. NELSON CO. 



Phone Atlantic 3797 



49 Washington Ave. So 



Minneapolis, Minn. 



GOOD THINGS TO EAT FEDERAL BREAD 

TAKE HOME A LOAF TODAY 
7— HANDY STORES— 7 516 Hennepin Ave. 
231 Hennepin Ave. 2921 Hennepin Ave. 
719 Hennepin Ave. 1511 NicoUet Ave. 
613 Marquette 1028 Hennepin Ave. 
Orders Our Specialty PARTY— LODGE— RECEPTION 
FEDERAL SYSTEM OF BAKERIES 


Minneapolis 



THE NEW GAYETY HQ-l-Ei 

Over Gayety Theatre 
Cor. 1st Ave. North and Washington Minneapolis 

Everything New — Modern 
Phone Atlantic 7896 BILLIE ROTHBERG, Prop. 



V,- 



MILD H. SNELL UNDERTAKING CO. 

FUNERAL. DIRECTORS. 
«02-904 20th Ave. North Minneapolis 

»^ - . J 



Cloverleaf Creamery Co. 

HEADQUARTERS FOR REAL CREAM, RICH MILK, FINEST BUTTER, 

FRESHEST EGGS AND CHOICEST DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

420 20TH AYE. NORTH 

MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA 



CONSULT THE CANCER SPECIALIST AT THE 
LAWRENCE SANATORIUM 

It is one of the largest and finest private Sanatoriums in the North- 
west. Staff and equipment complete for the best Medical and Surgi- 
cal Service. W. D. LAWRENCE, M. D., Proprietor. 
Address, 820 E. 17th St. Minneapolis, Minn. 



FINE FURS - 



COATS, WRAPS 
AND GARMENTS 
STORE YOUR FURS WITH US 
We do Repairing and Remodeling in our own factory 

WM. V. ECKERT 47 Eighth St. S. Minneapolis 



'^ 



E. M. DAUPHINE COMPANY 

FUNERAL DIRECTORS AND EMBALMERS 

MRS. E. M. DAUPHINE, Mgr. 
613 Eighth Avenue South MinneapoUs, Minnesota 



"YOU Want the BEST and We Make It" 

WILLIAM A. LOCHREN FILM & SLIDE COMPANY 

Manufacturers and Distributors 

MOTION PICTURES AND 

LANTERN SLIDES 

16 N. Fourth Street Minneapolis, Minnesota 



v.. 



I 



r — " > 

Ed J. Hyser R. a. Hyser 

HYSER BROS., GROCERS 

WHOLESALE TO CONSUMER 

113-115-117 North Seventh Street Minneapolis, Minn. 

\ - J 

DR. TOLLEEN, Chiropractor 

Suite 517— Phone At. 4298 
608 NICOLLET AVENUE MINNEAPOLIS 



fold it up'- lakt it with you-- 

typewrite anywhere 

You can use it any- 
where. Weighs but a lit- 
tle over 6 lbs. Price, $50.00 
with case. You can rent 
Corona or buy one on easy 
payments. 

CORONA TYPEWRITER 

That's the beauty of the SALES CO. 




Corona 



106 South 4th St. 
Minneapolis 



PERSONAL WRITING MACHINE" Main 2514 



Main 1432 Geneva 4952 

OPEN ALL NIGHT 

Ruben Tire Co. 

1313 Hawthorne Ave. 
Service Station For 

Miller and Goodrich Tires 

Whiz Bang!! 

extends greetings to the readers of "Sea Sodoms" — a 
*'sin"ical survey of Venezuela and the Caribbean — Rev. 
GoHghtly Morrill's latest book. Reverend Morrill is a 
regular contributor to the WHIZ BANG, and we invite 
you to further enjoy his future versatile writings by join- 
ing the WHIZ BANG family of one million readers 
monthly. 

W. H. Fawcett 

Raute 2, Robbinsdale, Minnesota 
Editor and Publisher of 
Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang 



6 Volt 
1 1 Plate 



$29.00 



MINNESOTA DISTRIBUTORS 

Ray Storage Batteries 

Guaranteed Unconditionally 2 Years 

REPAIRING BATTERIES A SPECIALTY 
RENTALS ALWAYS ON HAND 



GERDE AUTO CO. 



912-14 East Lake St., Minneapolis 



South 7257 



J 



■^ 




\£a 



THE ROYCROFT is a magazine of 
constructive criticism which will in- 
crease your will power, your capacity 
for friendship, your thinkery, your 
ideals. 

It seeks to be simple, direct, truth- 
ful. 

It speaks its mind without fear or 
favor. 

It believes **that only is sacred 
which serves." 

Elhert Hubbard 11. 



$1.50 the year — 15c the copy. East Aurora, N. Y. 




Harry Mitchell 

"Clothes Make the Man" 

Harry Mitchell makes clothes 

Be a Man--- 

Let ''Harry" do it 



Minneapolis 
18 So. 4th St 



St. Paul 
357 Robert St. 



PREFERRED STOCK 

of the 

NORTHERN STATES 
POWER CO. 

has paid dividends regularly since organiza- 
tion of the Company in 1909, at the rate of 
7 per cent per annum. 

Stock is obtainable for cash or on small 
monthly payments. It is an investment in a 
sound, well-established company, supplying 
the electric, gas and other utility requirements 
of cities in Minnesota and adjacent states. 

The Minneapolis General 
Electric Co. 

Division of Northern States Power Co. 
15 South Fifth Street 



1 



ct. 



THOS. A. EDISON'S 

Sublime Gift 
to Man 




Thomas A. EMison has, 
as through a miracle, re- 
created music for you. 
To you the master inven- 
tor has revealed the un- 
told wealth of the inner 
world of music. He has 
given to us the precious 
power to speak the sub- 
lime language of the soul. 



HEAR THE NEW EDISON 

Minnesota Phonograph Co. 

612 Nicollet Avenue 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 



245 91 






; /°- V 



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, HECKMAN 
BINDERY INC. |§| 

^ MAY 91 

^W" N. MANCHESTER, 
"^^^ INDIANA 46962 



:* .«««. -e^ A*' .'^V/h!-, "V^^* ; 



